Stay With Me
by Montana-Rosalie
Summary: Killian has lost the will to live. Emma walks into his life and turns everything upside down.
1. Prologue

**I'm back! This new story is a cross between "Me Before You" and "Safe Haven", and I can tell you right now that it's **more feels inducing than anything I have ever written before**. I hope you embark on another journey with me, even though it's to a world without magic where Neal is the worst bad guy imaginable and this Emma and Killian go through different things than Emma and Killian on the show; still, their essence is the same and true love will bring them together and help them heal each other… The schedule of posting is going to be the same as in my previous stories; prologue today, first chapter tomorrow and then a new one every three days until I finish the first draft. I hope you enjoy the feels!**

* * *

Royal Navy Captain Killian Jones disembarks from his ship in Pearl Harbor and shades his eyes with his hand from the glare of O'ahu sun. He slings his bag higher on his shoulder and walks toward the chain link fence separating the base from the rest of the island, grinning when Milah comes out of her car and races across the parking lot to jump into his arms. He catches her and twirls her around, both of them laughing because it's been too long since they'd last seen each other, since their lips and other parts met like this.

"Is he gone?" Killian asks as he sets her down and Milah nods, tilting her head and looking up at him, her arms crossed behind his neck.

"How long do you have?"

"I'm the captain now, lass. How long do you have?"

"Don't you worry your pretty little head about Rum. He and Bae are supposed to be on Maui at least until the end of the week", Milah says and they walk to her car, his arm slung around her shoulders and hers around his waist.

When he's on duty, sailing all around the world as one of the few Captains in the Royal Navy younger than thirty, he keeps telling himself that he's going to ask Milah to leave her husband next time he sees her, but when he does he's always too distracted to say anything. Today is no different, and as soon as she hands him the keys they roar out of the parking lot and he turns onto the highway, heading away from Pearl City.

Three minutes later, a black SUV comes out of nowhere and slams into their rear bumper, the car dancing left and right, life flashing in front of Killian's eyes because he's fairly certain this is it; this is how he dies. Still, he manages to get the car back under control and glances into his rearview mirror, watching the SUV take the first exit and disappear from sight.

"What in the bloody hell was that?" Killian says to no one in particular and returns his eyes to the road, realizing that there's been some kind of accident ahead of them and slamming the breaks just a little too late.

They hit the car blocking he road and fly over it in slow motion, tumbling into a ditch at the side of the road, Milah screaming his name as the car keeps going end over end. Combined with the metal groaning and his bones breaking as he bounces around the cabin, the sound of her scream makes him wish for oblivion. And yet, when they finally stop moving and the only thing he can hear is the rushing of blood in his ears, he'd give anything to go back and hear her voice again.

"Milah?" He whispers, confused because he doesn't feel any pain and scared because his limbs don't seem to respond when he tries to move them.

It takes him forever, but somehow he manages to turn his head enough to find Milah staring at him with wide open, unseeing eyes, and when the darkness comes to claim him he welcomes it with open arms.

* * *

Emma Swan comes out of the airport building cradling her two-year old son Henry with one arm and pulling her suitcase behind her with the other. After the air conditioned coolness of the interior, the O'ahu heat hits her like a wave of fire, but as she waits for the cab she realizes that it's the first time in years that she feels like she can breathe again. She thinks that this place can be her fresh start, and that she and Henry are going to be okay here.

In a way, it feels like coming home.

The cab arrives and she settles in with her son, her thoughts inevitably turning to Neal, making her stomach tie itself into knots, but then she reminds herself that she's safe now because Hawaii is the last place Neal would think to look for her and Henry.

Sometimes she wonders if there was any way for her to know that their relationship would fall apart so quickly and so horribly, if maybe there was some sign her naïve eighteen year-old self wouldn't have missed if she were wiser or more experienced. There probably wasn't, because the two years before Henry was born were nothing but bliss, whispered conversations late at night, holding hands in public and generally feeling like home to a girl who never knew one.

Emma glances out of the window at the crystal clear sky over the ocean, murmuring affirmation when Henry points at it with wide eyes and calls it big water.

"It's the ocean, honey", she tells him, remembering how perfect she felt the first time she held him, like she was born for the role of his mother.

And that's when her troubles begun. Neal had promised to marry her as soon as she gets "thin and pretty" again, and since she didn't put on too much weight in the first place, she was back in her pre-pregnancy jeans within months. When she came out of their bedroom to show it to him, turning around in a slow circle and watching him expectantly, he called her pushy and stupid and she just stood there, staring at him, unable to believe her ears. He apologized profusely, told her that he was under a lot of pressure at work, and after a while she'd forgiven him.

Until he hit her a month after when she jokingly asked him if he ever intended to make an honest woman out of her. He accused her of being obsessed with this idea of family and marriage and giving too much of her attention to Henry, trying to blame the shiner on her eye on her. One thing Emma Swan isn't is a weakling because she had learned an important lesson in her orphanage a long time ago; people who hit you once are going to hit you again unless you stand up to them or get as far away from them as you can. When Neal apologized, she pretended to accept his apology because she knew he fell into the latter category and her only option was to get Henry and leave Neal and his abuse behind.

First time she run, he caught her in a week, the second, in a month.

She hopes that third time's the charm because it took her a year and a half to get enough money and form a good escape plan, but she knows that no matter how far she runs, she's always going to be looking over her shoulder and scanning the crowd for Neal's face.

Her thoughts are interrupted they pass by some kind of an accident on the other side of the highway, two ambulances piercing the air as they race to reach the scene. The cab keeps on moving toward Pearl City and Emma leans back in her seat, holding Henry close and trying to unsee the overturned car that looked more like a crumpled tin can than anything else, hoping that whoever was in it is going to be okay.

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	2. Seems Like Fate

**You guys are so good to me! I was afraid you wouldn't go for a no magic AU and you're actually enthusiastic about it. I hope you stick with this story and that you won't hate me too much for breaking Killian; you know Emma is going to fix him eventually. Thank you so much for your support, new chapter will be up on Tuesday!**

* * *

_Two years later_

Emma knocks on Ruby's door, holding Henry's hand and listening to him talk about how much he needs Jazz for his ever-growing Transformers collection.

"Maybe next month", she tells him softly just as Ruby opens the door.

"What's happening next month? Don't tell me you're finally going out with somebody", she says, leading the way to the living room where Henry sets up his toys. Emma feels a rush of gratefulness because Ruby is the cheapest and the most amazing nanny ever and she doesn't know how they would survive without her.

"Henry wants Jazz, so I said maybe next month", Emma tells Ruby, trying to change the subject of dating as quickly as possible. She's not sure she's ever going out with anybody again, and definitely not as soon as next month because she doesn't trust herself enough to know who she can trust.

"I could set you up with one of the cute bartenders that work with me; I promise they are all super nice."

"No thanks", Emma says curtly, because even though she'd seen the guys Ruby works with every night, she feels a subtle rush of panic at the thought of being with one of them alone.

"Suit yourself. We'll see you at 5?"

"I hope. Bye, Henry", she murmurs, leaning down to kiss the top of her son's head.

"Bye, mommy", Henry says and beams up at her before going back to playing with his beloved Transformers.

* * *

Emma works at a diner that's only fifteen minutes away from her apartment and twelve minutes away from Ruby's, so she doesn't miss having a car; she doubts she'd even buy one if she could afford it, and she definitely can't.

It's eight on the dot when she enters the diner and hurries into the back to change, but the manager stops her and waves her into his office. She realizes that the diner is strangely deserted for this hour and gets a bad feeling in her gut which is promptly confirmed when the manager tells her that he's forced to close it.

Emma feels like screaming because she desperately needs this job, but the manager just shrugs and hands her last month's pay with a tiny bonus and practically kicks her out of his office.

For a while she just walks around the block, staring at windows of various shops without really seeing the items displayed in them, wondering what to do now. She doesn't have any practical skills, and that diner has been the only place she'd been working in the past two years, or ever.

There's a churches she always passes by on her way to work and now she goes in on an impulse, feeling so defeated and alone that she figures talking to God can't hurt, even if she's not all that certain if she believes in him.

The church is empty at this hour except for a beautiful, regal-looking woman sitting in the last row of pews staring off into space, her hands folded in her lap. Emma sits next to her because she gets the feeling this woman has it worse than she does, and they sit like that for a while, each lost in her own thoughts, but somewhat comforted by the presence of another human being close by.

"You're not sick, are you, darling?" The woman asks her in a clipped British accent, and Emma shakes her head, her long pony-tail bouncing over her shoulders. "Good. That's the worst thing that can happen to a young person, getting sick, or-" she cuts herself off and her eyes meet Emma's for a second before she looks away.

"I lost my job", Emma says, feeling the need to fill the silence. The woman looks at her and nods sympathetically.

"Awful economy. Not that England has it much better", she says and focuses all her attention on Emma, assessing her carefully. "I assume that's why you lost your job."

"They decided to close the diner I worked in, and I really needed that job because I have a son and I want to give him everything I never had and… I just don't know where to start looking for a new job because nobody's hiring", Emma finishes, feeling foolish for just dumping her problems on somebody she doesn't even know.

The woman scoots closer to her and Emma gets the weirdest feeling of hope, like maybe this complete stranger could be her salvation.

"Have you ever worked anywhere else except the diner?"

"No", Emma says softly, because what would be the point of lying anyway?

"Do you think you could handle seeing someone in perpetual state of discomfort and care for him on a daily basis?"

Emma is utterly confused, both with the question and the sudden change in her confidante. She's leaning toward Emma and looking at her like her entire future depends on Emma's answer, and frankly, it's uncomfortable as hell.

"Care for somebody? You mean like a nurse?"

"No, he's got somebody for that. Like a… like a companion that would spend the day with him, or turn on the TV or the radio for him, feed him and occasionally give him his medication", the woman gets everything out on one breath, and it takes Emma a while to process everything. "I could pay you handsomely."

"Why does he need people feeding him?" Emma asks just to say something, because she's pretty certain she knows the answer to that question already.

"My son was in an accident two years ago and… well, his spine was damaged. He can't walk, and his hand is too weak for him to raise it more than a couple of inches", the woman answers, her voice getting more silent with each word she says, like it's physically hurting her saying them and she can only handle it if they're barely audible. Unbidden, memories of that accident she passed by her first day on the island assault Emma and she shakes her head to send them away. It would've been too much of a coincidence, and besides, it doesn't really matter.

"I'm not sure I'm the right person for that", Emma says equally softly, realizing that she hadn't spent a day alone with a man since Neal, apart from Henry.

"I think you're the perfect person", the woman says, opening her purse and offering her a business card. Emma takes it without looking at it, and watches as the woman stands and exits the pew. "What's your name, dear?"

"Emma Swan", Emma answers obediently, and the woman smiles for the first time, her face going from beautiful to utterly devastating, her eyes shockingly blue in the dim light of the church.

"Call me, Emma Swan. I'll hold of hiring another one of those awful professional caregivers Killian hates so much for a few days, so you can think about it", she says, and Emma could swear there are tears in her eyes when she turns and walks out of the church.

Emma remains sitting where she is, finally looking down at the business card. It reads: Alice Jones, attorney at law, the telephone number crossed out and rewritten below the original with a fountain pen.

"Killian Jones", Emma says softly, then looks around in alarm as if uttering his name is forbidden if she doesn't intend to take the job.

On her way home, Emma can feel the business card in her pocket like a comfortable weight of a safety net, because if nothing else works out, she can always try this.

* * *

Nothing else had worked out. Three days later Emma is pacing in Ruby's kitchen, alternating between picking up the phone and putting it down on the counter.

"Will you just call?!" Ruby exclaims from the living room, watching a cartoon with Henry. "What's the worst that can happen?"

"Yeah mommy, call", Henry says, and Emma smiles, picking up the phone again and finally dialing the number.

"She probably took somebody else already", Emma says to herself, her heart feeling like it's trying to beat out of her chest. She's not quite sure what's making her so nervous, and she almost jumps out of her skin when Mrs. Jones picks up after the eighth ring.

"Hello, Alice Jones speaking?"

"Yes, hello, this is Emma Swan… from the church?" Emma chokes out, feeling like a complete idiot. What if the woman had already forgotten about her offer?

"Speak up dear, I can barely hear you. Have you thought about it?"

"I did", Emma says, trying to sound confident. "I'll do it, as long as I don't have to do anything too… personal", she finishes meekly, her cheeks burning because if Mrs. Jones gets offended now and hangs up on her she'll have nothing else to blame except her stupid hung-ups. And fucking Neal.

"I assure you that you won't have to do anything like that", Mrs. Jones says softly, and Emma breathes a sigh of relief.

"So, when can I start?"

"How about you come over this afternoon, and we shall see how it goes", Mrs. Jones says noncommittally and Emma nods, looking for a pen.

"What's the address?"

Mrs. Jones rattles it off and they hang up, Emma rushing around the kitchen looking for a map of the city.

"Calm down", Ruby says and pulls the map out of the drawer next to the sink, trying to smooth the creases, but Emma just plucks it out of her hand and unfolds it on the table.

"I'm calm", she says, looking for Julian Avenue and praying that it's close enough that she can take the bus. She finds it after a few minutes, and thinks that there must be a lovely view at the bay from the house, relieved that there's a bus stop just a mile away from it.

She's still staring at the map when Henry pulls the hem of her dress and asks her if he can come with her to "Juliland", and Emma picks him up and settles him on the chair so he can see the map when she points out the street she's hopefully going to frequent from now on.

"Maybe Mrs. Jones will let you visit me at work sometimes", she says, even though she doesn't really want to see her son hanging out with someone who can't even feed himself. As soon as she thinks it, she feels guilty and unfair and terribly small-minded, and wonders again if this is a huge mistake. Still, it's not like she's got other job opportunities lined up, and besides, maybe she ends up disappointing everybody and they don't even hire her.

* * *

Emma changes three times, and finally settles on the only pants suit she owns because it makes her look serious and responsible and not so young. She lets her hair down from its perpetual pony-tail and kisses Henry, walking to the bus stop and feeling like she's going to be sick any second now. There are multiple reasons for her nervousness, most prominent being the fact that she's not sure she's going to be able to do what they ask of her, Mrs. Jones' words ringing in her head in an endless loop; _Do you think you could handle seeing someone in perpetual state of discomfort and care for him on a daily basis_?

Her bedside manner isn't all that bad when Henry is sick, but she suspects it won't be so great with a stranger.

The bus ride ends much quicker than she thought it would, and she checks the map she had drawn, telling herself again and again that she can do this, that she needs this job and that she's going to be good at it. She's already regretting her outfit because it's not suited for anything other than a heavily air conditioned office and she feels ridiculous wearing it.

By the time she reaches the address Mrs. Jones had given her, she's actually relieved that she's here because it means finally getting away from the heat. She walks up the steps, noticing that all the houses in this street are similar, big and obviously expensive, but then again she hadn't expected anything less for a woman who dresses the way Mrs. Jones does.

Emma takes a deep breath and rings the bell, clutching her purse and listening for the sound of Mrs. Jones approaching the door. Instead, the door opens to reveal a short but strong-looking man, bald as an egg and sporting an impressive beard. He scowls at her and tells her that it's still not too late to run and save herself.

"I'm here to see Mrs. Jones," Emma says defiantly, planting her feet and staring him down.

"This one is feisty", he yells over his shoulder and waves her in, and when she steps into the hallway he leaves the house and closes the door.

Emma stands where she is for a whole minute before calling out a tentative hello.

"In here", comes the response from deeper in the house, a distinctly male voice with a British accent as proper as his mother's drawing her in.

"Where?" Emma calls back, walking down the hallway and passing by various rooms that are all empty.

"You're almost there", the voice comes again just as she passes the kitchen, and Emma smiles because this feels like playing hide and seek and she's actually enjoying it, all her apprehension suddenly and inexplicably gone.

"Almost-", she starts to say, trailing off when she rounds another corner and finds herself in a room that isn't empty, finally coming face to face with Killian Jones.

It's irrational and it doesn't make any sense, but when her eyes meet his, ignoring the bulky electric powered wheelchair, the fact that his left hand is missing and the scar on his right cheek in favor of ocean blue gaze that pierces through her like he can see straight into her soul, she gets the weirdest feeling that she's exactly where she's supposed to be and that everything's going to be alright.

* * *

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	3. First Impressions

**Thank you for reading/following/liking/reviewing! New chapter will be up on Friday.**

* * *

Emma hesitates in the doorway for just a few seconds, tearing her eyes from his with some difficulty and looking around as she comes closer to where he's sitting, noticing the polished wood of end tables and bookshelves, beautiful covering on the sofa that seems brand new and a breathtaking view of the bay through French doors leading out into the garden.

"I'm Emma Swan", she says, smiling her most charming smile. "I'm here because-"

"I know why you're here, Swan", he says, and she's a little thrown because no one ever called her that before, and because she finds that she really likes how it sounds coming from his mouth.

"You have a nice house", she tells him, stopping in front of him and wrapping the strap of her handbag around her finger to stop her from offering him her hand because she's not sure if he'd be able to shake it.

"I'll tell my mother you said that", he says tilting his head back to look up at her and Emma drops down on the arm of the sofa so he doesn't have to strain his neck, feeling his eyes assessing her in a way that should make her uncomfortable, but doesn't.

"So this is her house?" She asks him, reading the writing on his black T-shirt and fighting a goofy smile from spreading across her lips.

"It's rented, but as you can see I'm not much for decorating these days", he says, lifting his hand from the joystick of his chair for a couple of inches and gesturing around, the rings on his fingers catching the sun.

"I thought your mother would be joining us", Emma says, refusing to be embarrassed and cursing the uncertainty in her voice because she's going to be spending days alone with him anyway and it's probably for the best she starts getting used to it.

"Don't tell me you're afraid of little old me", he says and raises his eyebrow in silent challenge. She senses that this is a test, and if she fumbles for words now, he's probably going to send her away before his mother even decides to join them.

"Should I be afraid?" She asks him, raising her own eyebrow and tilting her head to the side, realizing that she can't remember ever being this relaxed while talking to a man since… well, Neal. At first she thinks it's because Killian's physically incapable of hurting her in any way other than running her over with his wheelchair, but something tells her that's just not it, even though she can't put her finger on what it is.

"No, Swan, you shouldn't", he says and gives her a smile that transforms his handsome face into something devastatingly beautiful despite never reaching his eyes.

They just sit there for a full minute, looking at each other like they're trying to win a contest in staring, and just as he's about to say something else his mother makes an appearance from the doorway behind him. Emma jumps up from the couch and hurries to shake her hand, reminding herself that she's here to discuss her employment and not… flirting? Was that what this was just now?

She tells herself that it's just her imagination and that the chemistry between them is only in her mind.

"I'm sorry, Miss Swan, I didn't hear the bell. When did Leroy left?" She asks Killian, laying her hand on his shoulder gently and looking at him with the sort of adoration that makes Emma a tiny bit jealous because she had never experienced anything like that; motherly figures in her orphanage were brisk and kind, but never doting.

"About… was it ten minutes, Swan?" Killian asks her and she nods, noticing Mrs. Jones' confused expression at their apparent familiarity. She recovers quickly and smiles at Emma, clearly relieved that her son seems to approve her choice.

"If you'd follow me to my office so we can discuss the terms of your employment", Mrs. Jones says and Emma realizes that Killian was the one who had the final say in whether she'd be employed or not.

Emma is a little stunned and very relieved that the uncertainty is over so quickly and watches Mrs. Jones walk back the way she came, turning on the radio along the way and glancing back to see if Emma's going to follow.

"See you", Emma says as she passes Killian on the way to the door, and the corner of his lips lifts just a little, like he's silently laughing to some private joke.

"See you, Swan", he says when she's already in the hallway, and it's too late for her to look back and ask him if radio Honolulu is really what he wants to listen to.

* * *

"The position is going to be open for six months, with option for longer if-", Mrs. Jones trails off and starts opening various drawers in her desk until she finds a stack of papers. "If you're successful and we think you're good at what you do."

"What exactly am I going to do? Aside from feeding him and turning on the TV for him?" Emma asks, because she needs to know if she even wants to be "successful" in her job.

"You're going to have to prepare the food, obviously, and Leroy is going to fill you in on his medication tomorrow morning and explain the medical side in case there's a crisis-"

"Whoa, what? I'm not sure I'd be able to deal with a medical crisis beyond calling 911", Emma says, and Mrs. Jones looks startled by her sudden outburst.

"If there is a crisis you can't handle, that's exactly what you do, but let us hope that there won't be any", Mrs. Jones says and Emma nods tightly, wondering if Killian is okay back there all by himself. "You can clean a bit when he tells you that he wants to be alone, but make sure to pop back in to check on him every fifteen minutes."

"Why?" She asks before she can stop herself because if she's getting paid to just hang out with him and cut his vegetables, she better not question any instructions she gets no matter how weird they seem.

"So he doesn't hurt himself!"

"I don't see how he could hurt himself accidentally when-" she starts to say, and then she just stares at Mrs. Jones with her mouth sort of hanging open.

"He hasn't adjusted to his condition all too well, Miss Swan, which is understandable because he used to be a Navy Captain, he used to drive motorbikes and play the guitar and I can't remember ever seeing him standing still", Mrs. Jones says, her voice breaking, and she hangs her head and presses the heel of her hand against her forehead, taking a deep breath to compose herself.

Emma looks away because she can connect to his mother's pain much better than she can to Killian's. She feels stupid for being so easily fooled with his smiles and eyebrow raises, for thinking that this is just about him needing company.

"So basically I'm on suicide watch", she says softly and Mrs. Jones nods.

"He hates it when I hover over him, and like I've already told you, he hates professional caregivers, but he seems to like you."

"I don't know if like is an appropriate word", Emma says, trying to appear professional even though she likes the idea of being special in Killian Jones' eyes.

"Believe me, Miss Swan, you don't want to know how he responds to people he doesn't like."

Emma signs the confidentiality agreement even though she doesn't see the point to it, and agrees to come tomorrow at 8 a.m. sharp. They shake hands and Mrs. Jones leads her back to the front door quickly, clearly making sure that she sticks to her own fifteen minutes rule.

"See you tomorrow", Mrs. Jones tells her and Emma says goodbye, glancing back at the house over her shoulder as she crosses the street on her way to the bus station.

The windows are reflective but she could swear that there's someone watching her leave from behind one of them, and she squishes the impulse to wave, squaring her shoulders and walking away.

* * *

Henry's playing in the room behind the bar in the club Ruby works in, and Emma apologizes for being late, promising she's going to be home by six tomorrow. She picks Henry up and gives him a kiss that makes him giggle and Emma tries not to think about horrible things happening to other people's sons.

"I missed you mommy", Henry says and then shows her a new way to make Bumblebee go from Camaro to Transformer in less than ten seconds.

"Never mind that. What's he like?" Ruby says, leaning against the doorway so that Emma can't leave before she gets her scoop.

"Who?"

"Don't play dumb, Emma. The guy you're going to spend nine hours with every day."

"Are you that desperate to find me someone that you'd settle for anybody, even the guy I'm going to be feeding for the next six months?" Emma asks, smiling when Ruby widens her eyes and attempts to look innocent. She doesn't tell her that her main responsibility is actually going to be making sure that Killian doesn't do something to himself because she still can't believe that he would attempt anything; he's supposed to be a macho navy guy, not somebody who gives up on life so quickly.

"Not anybody. The guy's loaded, so now I need you to tell me if he's also hot and what's his prognosis?"

Emma rolls her eyes, trying to step around Ruby because the answer to the first question would just fuel Ruby's determination and she doesn't really know the answer to the second, even though she can guess that it can't be good if he wants to leave this world behind.

"Oh my God he is hot", Ruby says, and follows Emma all the way to the door.

"I'm going to get paid to help him, not to fall in love with him", Emma says, and Ruby smiles sheepishly, her eyes sparkling with mischief.

"I find it pretty telling that this is the first time since I've known you that you've mentioned falling in love; usually you say you don't need anybody but Henry", Ruby tells her and gives her a pointed look before walking back to the bar.

Emma escapes from the club and puts Henry down, taking his hand and leading him back to their apartment, unable to stop thinking about what Ruby had said and telling herself it doesn't mean anything.

"How can people be hot? Does that mean they're sick? Are you going to be somebody's nurse?" Henry asks her and looks up at her expectantly, dragging his feet and making her slow down.

She tries to figure out how to explain physical attraction without actually explaining it, but her mind just keeps repeating "he's hot" until she acknowledges that he actually is. Messy dark hair and three-day beard make his blue eyes seem like two oceans she could drown herself in and the earring gives him a pirate-y edge; she's pretty certain that if it weren't for the wheelchair, she'd have been running out of that room the second she saw him because even as it is everything about him screams danger for her heart.

"It means they are good looking", she finally says, because Henry won't stop repeating the question until she gives him the answer.

"So you're going to marry him?" He asks, and Emma smiles at the mind of a four-year old and asks him why does he think she's going to marry Killian just because he's good looking. "Because you're really pretty, and he's gonna love you and ask you to marry him."

"I'm not going to marry Killian, baby. He's been in an accident and he needs my help, so I'm going to help him and get paid to do it."

She already seems like a broken record and it's only been an hour since she'd been employed.

Henry seems disappointed with her answer, and Emma watches him until he's ready to tell her what else is on his mind.

"I was thinking that if you married him then he could be my daddy", he finally says, and Emma stops walking altogether, kneeling in front of him and brushing hair off his forehead.

"I love you, Henry, and you love me, and we don't need daddies to be happy, right?" She asks, and he nods, albeit reluctantly.

The truth is that even though they don't need their daddies, it would be really nice if they could both have them in their lives.

* * *

**Review?**


	4. Hook & Swan

**Have a new chapter, and thanks for being so enthusiastic about this fic. It really means a lot to me. New chapter on Monday, and after that I'm switching to updating every other day because the first draft is almost (already) done. Enjoy the feels!**

* * *

Emma wakes up half an hour before her alarm clock and stares at the ceiling trying to remember her dream and figure out why is she so upset. She knows that she was dreaming about Killian but the details keep escaping her, so she finally gives up and goes to take a shower and wash her hair.

Henry is cranky because she gets him out of bed earlier than she used to when she was working at the diner, but she ignores his protests, wrestles some clothes onto him and gives him cereal, impatient to leave because she doesn't want to be late on her first day.

When they finally get to Ruby's apartment and Emma rings the bell, it takes Ruby a while to answer, and when she does she's still rubbing sleep from her eyes, looking like she'd just gotten to sleep minutes ago.

"I'm sorry. You guys can go back to sleep together", Emma says and Ruby takes half-asleep Henry from her and smiles when he rests his head against her shoulder. "Bye, honey."

Emma kisses the top of his head and races out of the building, relieved when she gets to the bus stop in time. The ride isn't long enough for her to think of enough safe conversation topics to last her all day and realizes that she's just going to have to talk about herself, which makes her anxious, but it's still better than asking Killian something that would upset him or make him uncomfortable.

When she gets to the house she uses the keys Mrs. Jones gave her yesterday and finds Leroy in the kitchen waiting for her. She glances at her watch to make sure she's not late and offers him a smile, but he just rolls his eyes and slides a thick binder across the counter. Emma drops her bag and sits on the stool next to him, opening the binder and looking over the files inside.

"Here's how it works: I get here first, take care of business and get him out of bed and into the chair. Then you come in, feed him and give him his medication. The list is on that sheet, and the medicine is in that cupboard over there, all neatly labeled. There's also a cookbook because he can't eat certain stuff and you have to prepare his meals the way it says in here."

Emma feels a rush of panic because there are a lot of pages in the binder and this isn't the kind of job you can try out for size and walk away if you fail; it's a question of a man's life, and way more responsibility than she had expected.

"Listen, sister; everything's going to work out just as long as you don't give him the wrong meds", Leroy says, noticing that her hands are shaking a bit as she flips the pages.

"That's comforting", Emma says dryly as he slides off the stool and starts for the door.

"You've got something working for you that all those other caregivers didn't have."

"Yeah? What's that?"

"He likes you", Leroy says, echoing Mrs. Jones, but before Emma can ask him how can he be so certain, he's already in the hall. "I'll be back after lunch, but you can call me anytime."

There are various phone numbers listed on the last sheet of paper and Emma sets it aside because she gets the feeling she's going to need him way before lunch.

* * *

"Mr. Jones?" Emma says from the doorway, and Killian looks up from the book he's reading that's opened on what resembles a note stand in front of him.

"Bloody hell, Swan. Where did you come from so suddenly?" He asks her, conveying fake shock with an enthusiastic wiggling of his eyebrows, and Emma finds herself wondering how can he move them so independently from each other and the rest of his face.

"Sorry", Emma says sheepishly, coming closer and giving him an apologetic smile.

"At least drag your feet a bit or something. And for God's sake don't call me Mr. Jones; for a second there I thought my father has finally decided to grace us with his presence and that's not something I'm looking forward to."

It's clear that his relationship with his dad isn't the greatest, but then again, if it was, she's sure he'd probably already be here with his wife and son.

"What should I call you, then?"

"For all I care you can call me Captain Hook", he says and Emma's eyes are drawn to his stump, making her realize that a hook would actually go with his pirate-y appearance pretty well, even though he's about the last person she'd imagine as that particular Disney's villain.

"You don't look anything like him", Emma says, raising her eyes to his, and he gives her the eyebrow again.

"You obviously haven't read the book", he says, and Emma feels a bit embarrassed because she really hadn't.

"You don't look anything like the cartoon version of him", she corrects herself and he narrows his eyes, tilting his head to the side.

"You make it a habit to watch cartoons?"

"I have a son, Henry. He's four, and Peter Pan is pretty much his favorite", she says and watches in surprise as he pulls away, leaning his head back against the head rest, the light that was dancing in his eyes just seconds ago slowly fading. He doesn't say anything, and she's probably completely off base, but he seems… disappointed. It doesn't help that everybody keeps telling her that he likes her, so she changes the subject to what she had originally meant to ask him when she came in.

"So, Hook", she says, and he looks down and smiles to himself, making her grin too. "What do you want for breakfast?"

"Excuse me?"

"There's a whole cookbook in the kitchen with meals that have to be prepared just so, and I was wondering which one of them do you want today?" She asks, trying to figure out what's so surprising about her question.

"Swan… You're bloody brilliant", he says and stares at her like she just asked him the most important question in the world.

"Thanks, I guess", she says, and looks at him uncertainly.

"I've had exactly ten caregivers in the past year, and not one of them had ever asked me what I wanted to eat", he says, and Emma feels a breathtaking rush of sadness at his words, slowly grasping how hard his life really is. It's not just the general paralysis and dependence on others, it's the lack of choice, and she vows then and there never to try to decide anything for him.

"Lucky for you that you've got me now", Emma says, and she can't believe how quickly she is to smile around him and how easy it is to talk to him; she's unable to shake off the feeling that she'd known him forever and that they are just getting reacquainted.

* * *

Emma makes an omelet as per request and sets it on a tray, checks the medication list five times to make sure she's not messing the doses up, pours a glass of water and carries everything back to the living room.

Killian watches her as she sets the plate down on the end table and looks around, trying to figure out how to do this.

"You forgot the straw", he tells her, and she glances at the tray before running to the kitchen to get it. The only thing that could hurt him on that tray it is the fork he probably can't even reach, but she still returns in record time with the straw.

"Any advice or suggestion is welcome", she says, and he motions with his head toward the sofa.

"Sit on the arm and put the tray on that table", he says and she does as he instructs, feeling a strange stirring of _something_ inside her when she sits down and he comes as close as he can, his knees inches away from hers.

Emma takes the fork and prays her hand doesn't shake when she brings it to his mouth, feeling a bit awkward because he studiously keeps his eyes downcast. She wants to tell him that there's no need to feel embarrassed, but he'd probably find it condescending, so she doesn't say anything. Besides, now that those all-seeing eyes aren't on her, she can let her eyes wander over his face, noticing for the first time how thick and long and dark his eyelashes are, casting delicate shadows down his cheeks and hiding the blue in his eyes from her sight.

It's probably for the best, because his eyes are unnervingly beautiful from this close and she doesn't want to get distracted and stab him in the nose with the fork.

"Something funny, Swan?" He asks her, and she realizes that she had chuckled out loud.

"I just pictured stabbing you in the nose with the fork", Emma says truthfully, and his eyes widen comically, her admission providing distraction she'd been looking for.

"It's only your first day and you're already contemplating the best way to attack me", he says, his mouth quirking up at the corner, and Emma shakes her head.

"This fork wouldn't be my weapon of choice", she tells him, her smile melting from her face because she remembers all the nights she had lain in bed next to Neal, wishing she could find it in herself to hurt him in his sleep as payback for all the times he had hurt her.

"Swan? Are you okay?" Killian asks her, his voice coming from a great distance even though he's right in front of her, and Emma shakes those dark thoughts away, telling herself that nobody is going to hurt her again, especially not the man who currently depends on her not to starve.

"Why wouldn't I be okay?" She asks him, setting the fork down because the plate is empty and forcing herself to meet his questioning gaze.

He's looking at her in a way that makes her want to spill all her secrets, but she suppresses the urge and takes the little plastic cup with the pills and offers it to him. He nods and she brings it to his lips, then gives him water, spellbound with the way he wraps his mouth around the straw as he drinks, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down under the scruff.

When he's done she looks away and notices a tattoo on the inside of his wrist, a heart with a name written over it and pierced by a dagger.

"Who's Milah?" She asks, the words coming out before she can stop and think about what she's doing.

"Someone from another life", he says, following her gaze to the tattoo, his fingers wrapping around the joystick and reversing the chair away from her.

"Where is she?" Emma asks, getting to her feet and looking down at him, for some unfathomable reason needing a confirmation that this Milah is no longer in the picture.

"Where's Henry's father?" He asks her, and she gives him a surprised look. "Come on, lass. If he were here, you wouldn't be doing this for me, not like this."

Emma wants to ask him what he means by "not like this", but that's not what comes out of her mouth.

"He's gone, and I hope he's never coming back", she says firmly and their eyes lock together as she waits for him to answer her question.

"Milah died in the accident that put me in this chair", he tells her, and Emma wishes she could take her question back because all of a sudden he looks so defeated, and for the first time she realizes that his spirit is as broken as his body; she feels connected to him because she's the same inside, and usually much better at hiding it.

Killian looks as stricken as she is by his admission and pivots the chair, parking it next to the window, his back turned to her and clearly letting her know that she's dismissed.

"Would you like me to turn on the radio?" She asks as she picks up the tray, and he just shakes his head and keeps staring at the bay.

Before Emma leaves the room, she casts one last apologetic look over her shoulder, but he doesn't acknowledge her presence; it's like nobody's home, like he went somewhere better in his mind and left the prison of his own body behind.

* * *

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	5. Closer

**I'm happy to announce that the first draft is finished and that from now on I'll be posting a new chapter pretty much daily, so buckle up people, it's going to be a bumpy ride! Thanks for reading and enjoy!**

* * *

The first week goes by faster than Emma had expected it would, and by the time she arrives at the house on Friday, she feels a little deflated because Killian hadn't really talked to her after the conversation they had about their previous loves, and she fears that she had messed it up and that things are always going to be strained between them. She's sick of general questions about what he wants to eat and if he needs anything, and they can't even discuss the weather because in Hawaii, it's always pretty much the same, warm and sunny and perfect.

Still, she doesn't give up on trying to make small talk as she feeds him breakfast, but he gives her curt answers that make her feel awkward and makes her want to jump out of the second story window, so she finally gives up and starts dusting the bookshelf, running back and forth every few minutes to turn the page of the book he's reading for him.

"How about we go outside?" She asks him when he reaches the end of the book and she can't find another speck of dust anywhere in the room, and she's too worried about Mrs. Jones rule of fifteen minutes to venture deeper into the house.

"What?"

"Into the garden, catch some sun?" Emma clarifies, looking down at him and noticing that his scruff is dangerously close to turning into a beard.

"I don't think so", he says, glancing out the window at the lush green and the blue of the bay beyond.

"Why not? You don't like being in the sun?" Emma asks, trying to sound cheerful and teasing, and he shrugs, giving her a side-ways look that tells her silently that she's trying too hard. "Okay, I'm going to be honest; I'm bored. So we either go outside, or I start dusting those shelves again because I must earn my pay."

The corner of his lips lifts and he leans his head back against the headrest, turning the chair around and starting toward the doorway.

"Well come on then, Swan. We're going outside", he tells her without turning around and she realizes that the French windows have a step that he can't navigate in the chair, so she follows him through the house and out the back door.

The path leading through the garden is shaded by various trees so it's not too hot, but she still feels a pang of worry because apparently Killian's thermostat is busted and he can't regulate his body temperature; she took the files home after her first day and there was so many information in there that she felt a little bit overwhelmed.

There's a bench in the center of the garden, and even though they can't see the bay from here, they can't see the house either, and it's like a little private hiding place made just for the two of them. Emma sits down and looks at him, debating whether to ask him some of the questions that have been burning in her mind or not.

"Out with it, Swan", he says, and she frowns.

"Out with what?"

"You want to ask me more probing questions, so ask away", he says, and smiles at her embarrassed expression. "You're such an open book."

"Am I?"

"Indeed you are", he says and closes his eyes, sunlight sifting through the leaves and warming his face.

"Why are you still here? Why didn't you return home to England?" She asks, resting her arm on the back of the bench and folding one leg under herself.

"What does it matter where I am? Besides, I hate the weather over there, it used to make me depressed even before… this", he says, and Emma gives up trying to find a question that won't somehow end up being about his disability, because apparently there are no such questions left.

"Those books, and the guitar and the ship models back in the living room, is that all yours or did your mother just use it to decorate the place?" She asks, a shiver running down her spine because she can imagine him playing so easily, those long fingers coaxing the most beautiful music from that instrument now hanging uselessly on the wall.

He's silent for a long while, and she starts thinking that he won't answer her, that she went too far and hurt him, but then he opens his eyes and tells her that his mother basically brought all his things from England so he would feel at home, minus the horrible English climate.

"Henry would love those models so much, maybe even enough to stop obsessing over collecting _all_ the Transformers in the world", Emma says, smiling when she remembers Henry's face when she took him to see the ships in Pearl Harbor. He had so many questions and she felt horribly inadequate answering them, and as she looks at Killian she thinks that he'd be the perfect person to impart that knowledge on her son.

"Is that why you came here? For big ships that would distract Henry?" He asks her, and she gets this irrational panicky feeling before she remembers that it's not the first time he guessed stuff about her. She's starting to think that it's always going to be like this with them; all their secrets eventually coming out one at a time.

"No. I came here because it's the farthest from Neal I could get", she tells him, and they have another one of their staring contests. She forces herself not to squirm under his assessing gaze but it's hard because his eyes are just too blue so she finally gives up and looks away first.

Emma doesn't ask him any more questions because he gives as good as he gets and she doesn't want to reveal anything else about her past life. It's funny how neither of them can resist answering the other's questions, and she realizes that their conversations have been ridiculously personal for two people who have only met each other a week ago.

She could lie to herself and say that it's because of his disability that she finds it hard to tell him that something isn't his business, but that's not the reason. If only she could figure out what is.

* * *

Leroy comes over after lunch and he and Killian disappear into his room just like they do every day, while Emma cleans up after lunch and eats her sandwich standing over the sink, trying not to wonder about what they do in there.

"Killian asked me to tell you to come to his bathroom", Leroy tells her and she almost drops the sandwich, thinking that the job was in fact too good to be true and now she's going to have to do something uncomfortable. "You look like you're going to run."

"What exactly he wants me to do?" Emma asks, wrapping up her sandwich and looking at Leroy uncertainly because she wants him to tell her that she's going to be okay.

"It sure ain't a sponge bath", Leroy says and gives her a toothy grin before he disappears wherever it is he goes when he's not here.

Emma walks down various hallways until she finds the room with a hospital-looking bed, and finally sees Killian patiently waiting for her in the bathroom.

"What do you think? Should we shave everything off or keep it scruffy?" He asks, looking himself in the mirror, and Emma feels relieved that shaving him is going to be the extent of her duty today.

"I vote for scruffy, but it's your call", she says and squeezes past him, leaning against the wall and waiting for him to stop admiring himself and tell her where to find the trimmer or the razors.

"I'm not sure I trust you with a blade against my throat anyway", he says and smiles, his eyes dancing with some private joke, but Emma doesn't care because she'd give everything to keep him like this for the rest of the time she's here.

Moments like this are short-lived and few and far between, but when they happen, when something she says or does makes him forget his situation, no matter how briefly, she feels strangely giddy, and it's something she hadn't felt for a long time.

"Where's the trimmer?"

"In the cupboard", he says and points with his chin, and suddenly Emma's a little uncertain of her ability to do this, to be in this crowded bathroom with him without a fast way out because they he's close enough to punch her. It takes her a few deep breaths to remember that for him to do that, he'd have to be able to raise his hand more than a couple of inches, but no matter how much she wants to believe that he wouldn't even if he could, she knows that she had thought the same about Neal before he first showed her that ugly side of his he'd hidden so well for so long.

Her face must be betraying her feelings because his pretty smile turns into a frown, but before he can say anything she quickly turns around and takes the trimmer out of the cupboard, plugging it in and tucking one of the towels into the collar of his shirt before she spreads it over his chest.

"Do not move", she tells him seriously and gently tilts his head to the side with her fingers, trying not to think about the last time she touched a man this intimately and what she got in return.

Emma moves the trimmer over his skin carefully, feeling his eyes on her face and refusing to meet them, focusing only on what she's doing. His skin is soft and warm under her fingers and she inhales his scent with every breath she takes, and for some unfathomable reason it makes her relax, makes her forget that she had only met him last week when she couldn't even imagine doing this for him or any other man.

Time slows down and it's like they exist in a bubble, separated from the rest of the world, and even though she'd never admit it, she likes how it feels to be so close to him.

When she's done, she tilts his head this way and that to make sure she did a good job, only letting go of him when she realizes that she doesn't really want to.

"Good?" She asks, looking at his reflection in the mirror and setting the trimmer down on the sink.

"Good", he says, and Emma gathers the towel and shakes it off into the toilet. She pauses to let him out and he tilts his head toward the doorway. "After you."

Emma walks out and stops to look at the pictures on the chest of drawers, looking over her shoulder to check if it's okay. He gives her a one-shouldered shrug and she studies the expensive-looking frames, for the first time really realizing how different their lives were before Hawaii. He grew up in a house big enough to be a hotel, went to a private school and then traveled all over the world before he joined the Royal Navy, and she had only seen her orphanage and the house she had shared with Neal that soon became a prison. She picks up the picture of him in his uniform, grinning at the camera with his arm around another sailor, and he looks so beautiful and young and carefree that she can barely recognize him, not because he's not beautiful now, but because the spark is missing from his blue eyes.

"Used to be a handsome devil, right Swan?" He says, a self-deprecating note sneaking into his voice even though she knows he's much less prone to pity parties than she would've expected.

"Used to?" She asks, raising her eyebrow at him and grinning at his utterly stunned expression. It's probably the first time that she had said something that Killian Jones doesn't have a comeback for.

When she walks to the bus stop that evening, she makes herself believe that her presence is exactly that he needs and that she's helping him in ways nobody else could, even though there's a persistent voice in her head telling her to come off her cloud before circumstances prove to her again that life is not a fairytale.

* * *

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	6. This is Your Life

**As promised, new chapter already! I'm glad you're so anxious to read this story because I'm equally anxious to share it with you! Thanks for reading and enjoy the feels!**

* * *

Emma spends the weekend doing nothing except being with Henry; taking him to the beach and watching him play in the sand, but her thoughts turn to Killian too often for comfort. She tries to block them and focus all her attention on her son, but it's not really working, no matter how many times she tells herself that Mrs. Jones is there if Killian needs anything, that he'd been without Emma for years and that he won't even notice her two-day absence.

It's funny really, that after only a week of taking care of him she already thinks that she's irreplaceable, as if what she's doing for him is something no one else can do properly.

"Mommy", Henry says to get her attention, sitting down on her beach towel and setting aside his plastic bucket and shovel, effectively pulling her out of her reverie. She brushes sand off his shoulder and he crawls into her lap, giggling when she blows raspberries on his neck. "Why do you work for mister Killy?"

"Did Ruby tell you something?" Emma asks him, chuckling at the cute nickname and wondering what Killian would think of it if he heard her son refer to him as "Killy".

"No. I just heard you when you told her that you need to feed him and do stuff for him, and I was wondering why", Henry says, patiently waiting for her to gather her thoughts and answer him.

"Killian needs help with certain things, and it's my job to help him", Emma says, brushing hair from his forehead and thinking that she really needs to give him a haircut. Trouble is, by the time she gets home she already misses him so badly that she only wants to talk to him and listen to him talk and mundane things like haircuts tend to get overlooked.

"Yes, but why?"

"Because he was hurt and he can't do it himself", she tries to explain Killian's condition as delicately as possible, and Henry frowns, obviously not getting it. The main reason Emma treads so carefully, is that she's so acutely aware of her other duty, of her task of stopping Killian from doing something horrible to himself, and it's making her deathly afraid of Henry somehow finding out about it.

"Can't the doctors fix him?" He asks her, looking up at her with a hopeful expression because he's four and he doesn't understand yet that miracles like that only happen in cartoons and children's books.

"There are some things nobody can fix, baby", she tells him softly, her stomach dropping at the possibility that Killian is going to be stuck in that chair for the rest of his life.

* * *

Emma ambushes Leroy in the kitchen on Monday morning and demands to know how serious Killian's condition is and what are his chances for recovery. Leroy starts to list medical terms like incomplete SCI and C6 and ever-present danger of AD and she stops him, waving her hands around until he shuts up.

"In English, please", she says, and Leroy rolls his eyes, which seems to be his default response to pretty much everything. That and heavy frowning; he'd be a perfect Grumpy if this was a fairytale and not real, hard life.

"He's pretty much screwed any way you slice it. The best I can do is exercise his limbs to stop the muscles from atrophying, and maybe in time he recovers some mobility in his arms, but he's never going to walk again unless the good doctors come up with something groundbreaking, which I doubt they ever will", he says, looking at her like she's stupid for expecting to hear anything else.

Emma feels like she's been slapped, like he just told her that she's a silly girl who doesn't know what she's doing without actually saying it.

"But-"

"But he's too young and beautiful and charming and charismatic to have that happen to him", Leroy mocks her, shaking his head like he hadn't expected this from her. "You're not the first caregiver who pitied him but you're probably the last so… just don't. He hates it."

"I wasn't-", Emma starts to say but he storms out of the kitchen and leaves her standing there, feeling awful and wondering why he said that she's going to be Killian's last caregiver; he can't honestly think that she's going to do this forever, can he?

Something is telling her that there's more to his words than that, but she chooses to ignore the bad feeling in the pit of her stomach because it scares her more than she'd like to admit, and leaves the kitchen to see what Killian wishes to have for breakfast.

"So, Swan. Where is your son while you're wasting time here with me?" Killian asks her a couple of days later as she tries to clean the floor in front of the TV without obscuring his vision. "And could you please turn it off, this movie is bloody awful."

"Henry is with a friend of mine. And I'm not wasting time", Emma says, turning off the TV and glaring at him as she leans on her broom pointedly.

"Why not put him in daycare?" Killian asks her, his raised eyebrow telling her that he doesn't care if she's doing any cleaning or not.

"It's too expensive. And besides, he loves Ruby. She'd been taking care of him pretty much since we moved here", Emma says, going back to her work.

"Ruby? So you don't have a boyfriend?" He asks her, and Emma freezes involuntarily at the word boyfriend because it makes her think about Neal and that is never a good thing.

"No. What's with the sudden interest in me?" She finally answers him, relieved that her voice doesn't tremble at all.

"I'm bored", he says, but there's a glimmer of something in his eyes that she could easily call relief if she ever thought he'd be interested in her.

"Then let's go outside. Take a walk around the neighborhood", Emma suggests, and he looks at her like she just proposed they went on the Moon.

"No thanks", he says curtly, his eyes giving her a silent warning not to push it.

"Oh come on. You're bored, and you're going to stay bored until you get out of the house", Emma says, refusing to take no for an answer.

"I'm not in the mood for people staring at me like I'm some kind of a sodding circus attraction", he says, and his words slice her like a knife.

"But-", Emma starts to say, wanting to tell him that nobody would stare because most people would probably just ignore him, but then it hits her that feeling invisible must hurt more than awkward stares.

"Drop it, Swan", he says sharply, effectively cutting her off before she can put her foot in her mouth. He startles her a little, but she doesn't back down because if she lets him win this round she may never convince him to leave the house.

"Fine, then let's just go to the garden", she says and starts walking, praying that he's going to follow and letting out a silent sigh when he does.

* * *

"What's it like being on the ocean with nothing but the water and sky surrounding you?" Emma asks, stretched out on the bench with her eyes closed. Killian is parked next to her under the tree, and when they're here she keeps forgetting that they're not friends, that she's just his employee, that she shouldn't be asking him questions like this.

"Indescribable", he says, and she can almost hear the wistful smile in his voice. She can't see him but she's still so aware of his presence, of the exact relation of his body to hers in this garden, among the flowers and trees and under the sky that shares the color with his eyes.

"Try", she says softly, listening to him breathe until he finally speaks and she can listen to his voice shape common words into poetry with his beautiful accent, making her want to stay here like this forever.

"It's peaceful. It's like you're not even on the same planet as everybody else. It's like you're the last person on Earth and you're finally aware of the immensity of the universe."

Emma had came to the realization that there's no safe subject pretty quickly, that there's no way to avoid making him think about everything he'd lost, no way to take his mind off his situation completely because he's aware of it every waking moment and there's nothing she can do to change that, but sometimes he loses himself in memories, for just a little while managing to leave the bounds of his body and be free again.

This is one of those times.

She opens her eyes and finds him looking at her, a little disappointed that she didn't get to see his face when he was far away, because it's only when it happens that she feels like she's actually doing something that matters for him.

"I've been alone most of my life, and I hate it, but you just made it sound kind of wonderful", she tells him softly, remembering her childhood, how much she had longed that some family would adopt her and made her their own, but it just wasn't in the cards for her.

"What do you mean? What happened to your parents?" He asks her, leaning forward a little, as if he wants to let her know that he's here if she wants to talk about it.

And when she realizes that she wants to, she tells him everything; how she can't remember any parents, just the orphanage she grew up in, how she had a family for a couple of years when she was little but they got their own child and they gave her back, and how after that nobody had ever wanted her.

Her voice trembles and she doesn't want to cry, so she sits up and blinks, staring at the flowers across the path and breathing slowly until the burning in her sinuses goes away.

"I'm sorry, Swan", Killian says softly, and Emma shrugs because it's nobody's fault but her parents'. Still, the way he says it is so genuine she can't help but smile.

"Treasure your mom and dad even if they irritate you sometimes", Emma tells him, turning her head to look at him. "They decided to keep you, and they are the only people who are going to love you no matter what."

"My father doesn't want to come see me because I'm like this", he says almost absentmindedly, leaning his head back and staring up at the tree top.

"What?" Emma exclaims before she can stop herself, and he nods, his mouth pressed into a thin line. It's hard for Emma to decide what is worse; her parents giving her up when she was just a helpless baby or Killian's father failing him now when he needs him the most.

"I'd say your theory of unconditional love doesn't apply to life-altering injuries. Either that or he's a bloody wanker", Killian says and Emma wishes she could somehow take his pain, even if there's no other way to do so but make it hers.

"Your father and my parents would probably get along pretty good", Emma says and feels warmth spreading through her when he looks at her again and gives her a smile, and it's got absolutely nothing to do with the sun shining down on them.

It seems that each passing day reveals one more layer of her and one more layer of him, and more often than not, those layers are pretty much the same. She'd always believed in kindred spirits, and for a moment she can almost believe that maybe she just found hers, but then she remembers that she had thought the same about Neal and she puts a stop to those kinds of thoughts.

She's got Henry, and that's all that matters.

* * *

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	7. Rude Awakening

**A lot of you've been asking about Killian and Henry meeting; it's happening in the next chapter and I can tell you that it's super cute and I think you're gonna love it. Enjoy and thanks for reading/reviewing/following/favoriting!**

* * *

The second she walks into the kitchen she knows that something is wrong because Leroy isn't there waiting for her, so she goes first into the living room and then down the hallway to Killian's room, pausing outside uncertainly.

Leroy comes out and almost collides with her, marching her back into the living room.

"Today is not a good day for him", he tells her, and Emma frowns in confusion, because she doesn't have any idea what he means with that.

"His blood pressure is high and he's got a killer headache, so he's going to stay in bed. Give him his usual pills, but don't give him anything for the headache for at least a couple of hours because I already did that. Try to make him eat something even if he says he's not hungry, and if he gets worse call me immediately. I don't think this is an AD attack, but you never know", he tells her and Emma nods, fighting the urge to grab his hand and beg him not to leave her alone.

After he's gone she stands in the living room for a couple of minutes before she goes back to Killian's room, dragging her feet and asking him if she can come in.

She can almost hear him rolling his eyes when he tells her that she can.

Emma peeks around the doorway first, her ponytail swinging, her smile slipping when she sees him, pale and with dark circles under his eyes, and for the first time since she's known him looking as broken as he in fact is.

"I guess we're going to have to postpone our venture beyond the garden. Sorry", he says, and Emma comes closer, leaning her hip against the side of his bed and grasping her elbow with the opposite hand behind her back to keep herself from reaching for his hand. She keeps forgetting that it's not in her job description to care, but she can't look at him and feel nothing no matter how hard she tries.

"I'll still be here tomorrow or whenever you feel up for it", she tells him and his sad smile just about breaks her heart. "What can I get you for breakfast?"

"Just water", he says, closing his eyes for a moment, and she shakes her head at him like she does at Henry when he's being stubborn.

"You have to eat something", she says, and catches herself before she adds "for me", because why would he want to do anything for her?

"I'm not your toddler, Swan. A couple of hours without breakfast won't kill me", he adds to lessen the sting of his words, and Emma nods tightly because he's right, he's not a child and she needs to back off. She's here to listen to him and do what he tells her to do, not to try and force anything on him like everybody else seems to do.

"Fine", she says and pours him a glass of water, producing a straw from her pocket and peeling off the protective foil, turning back to him in surprise when she hears him chuckle. "What?"

"Nothing", he says, still grinning, and she loves this, loves his gentle teasing because it makes her think that he can't be in too much pain if he can laugh at her obsessive organization skills. Right?

"Should I put on some music?" She asks him, already moving toward the stereo system, but his voice stops her half-way there.

"Swan? Would you read to me?"

The fact that he asks it like this, like she's not basically a glorified personal assistant but his friend, makes it impossible for her to refuse, and at that moment, watching him lay there with his clenched jaw and motionless body, she can't think of a single thing she would refuse to do for him.

* * *

Killian falls asleep after about ten pages of "River God", a book he let her choose from the bookshelf in the library. When she picked it she hadn't really bothered to read the summary or anything beyond the title because she was in too much of a hurry to return to his side.

The premise of the book intrigues her so she keeps reading, minutes ticking by slowly as she watches the love story of princess Lostris and a soldier named Tanus unfold in her mind, glancing up every so often just to make sure that Killian's chest is still rising and falling gently with his breathing. She's horribly tempted to watch him sleep; his mouth half opened, his eyelashes casting long shadows against his cheeks, his jaw not as tight as it was when he was awake, but she resists because she knows she doesn't have the right.

Mrs. Jones comes to check up on her son around noon and Emma closes the book, feeling guilty for not doing any cleaning while he's sleeping, but Mrs. Jones lays her hand on Emma's shoulder and smiles, giving her silent absolution.

Still, when she leaves Emma sets the book down and goes to prepare lunch, racing back and forth between his room and the kitchen in her socks to make sure he's okay and avoid waking him.

It's way past lunchtime when he finally stirs and Emma jumps from her chair beside his bed, wrapping the cuff around his bicep, smiling when she sees that his blood pressure had returned to normal.

"I'm bringing you lunch and you can't object", she tells him, feeling ridiculously giddy because the color has returned to his cheeks and he looks much better than he had this morning.

"Wouldn't dream of it. But first help me sit up?" He makes it sound like a question, like it's up to her to decide if she wants to do it or not.

"Tell me what to do", she says without hesitation because he is not Neal; the only weapons available to him are words and he hadn't even tried to use them on her in the past few weeks.

"Get those pillows and sit down next to me", he tells her and she wedges them between his side and the rail of the bed, then sits down, feeling her heart slam against her ribcage because she's starting to doubt her ability to do this without hurting him. "Swan, it's okay. You just lean down, wrap your arms around me and sit up, then arrange the pillows behind me."

She nods a few times, avoiding his eyes and feeling like an idiot for freaking out about something so trivial that any other person would just do it without overanalyzing it like she does.

"Leroy should be here any minute, and I can wait for him if you-" he starts to say, but she doesn't let him finish, wrapping her arms around him, her cheek against his when she pulls him up with her, keeping her left arm around him as she moves the pillows with her right and slowly settles him against them. Her arm is still trapped behind him and she can feel the prominent edges of vertebrae against it so she frees it slowly, their eyes meeting, blue and gray catching on each other hopelessly until she reminds herself that the warmth that's filling her when he looks at her like this is wrong in about a million different ways.

"How did I do? Not bad for my first time, huh?" She asks, grinning because she doesn't know how else to break this tension between them.

"Definitely prefer your methods over Leroy's", he says and she can't believe that he actually winks at her, making her laugh all the way to the kitchen as she goes to fetch his lunch.

* * *

Leroy arrives and she busies herself washing the dishes and the floor in the kitchen even though it's pretty much spotless already while he does his thing in Killian's room. Every time she sees him she wants to ask him what exactly is it they do in there, but she can hazard a guess and chickens out of that conversation because it feels wrong to discuss Killian's bodily functions with anybody else, and since she sure as hell won't discuss them with him, she shakes her head and stops thinking about it.

"You did good today", Leroy tells her on his way out and she doesn't even get a chance to say that she hadn't really done anything before he's already gone.

She goes back into Killian's room and sits down into an armchair next to his bed, brushing dark hair away from his eyes on an impulse she doesn't want to analyze too closely because it shouldn't even be there in the first place. It feels so natural to touch him like that so she ignores his raised eyebrow and takes the book from the night stand.

"You read this before, right?"

"Of course."

"Are they going to end up together?" Emma asks, tracing her fingers over the raised letters on the cover. She doesn't know why is it so important for her to know, but it just is.

"Take it home with you and find out", he tells her cryptically, smiling a little at her impatience.

"I'm going to take it home, but I want to know now. Tell me what happens." She hadn't even reached the middle of the book, but she's completely hooked and she's prepared to stay up all night to finish it.

"Swan-"

"Please?" She asks, fluttering her eyelashes and giving him her most charming smile.

"There is no happy ending for either of them", he tells her softly, and the effort he's putting into trying to break her gently is only making it worse.

"But they went through so much already! She had to marry that horrible old Pharaoh instead of the love of her life!"

"Swan-"

"What happened? Was it not true love?!"

"Swan, it's just a book-"

"Tell me", she demands, and she's thankful that he's not looking at her like she had lost her mind because he can probably guess that she sees so much of herself in Lostris and she's still waiting for her own happy ending, so if Lostris doesn't get it, how could Emma?

"They have two more children after they flee Egypt, but Tanus gets killed in battle and Lostris never really recovers", he tells her, watching her so intently, as if his sheer will power can keep her from falling apart because they both know it's not the book, it's her life and everything she'd been through.

Emma settles the book down gently and crosses her arms in front of her chest.

"I'm not reading about that", she says petulantly, feeling like an idiot for believing even for a second that true love came overcome anything. After all, what does she know about true love? She thought she had it once upon a time, but it was nothing but an illusion that hurt her so badly she doubts she'd recognize true love if it hit her in the head now.

"At least they see each other again in the afterlife, which is more than regular people get", he says, readjusting his head on the pillows and looking as defeated as she feels.

"You don't believe in Heaven or reincarnation or something like that?" She asks him, and he shakes his head, staring at the ceiling.

"I believe there's just endless pain, and the only thing waiting for you when you die is oblivion", he says, and a chill goes down Emma's spine because there's so much longing in his voice and it's scaring her more than she's prepared to admit.

"Music?" She asks, desperate to change the subject and fill the silence that had fallen on the two of them. He shrugs, so she gets up and puts one of the movie scores in, the music raising and falling like the waves as they both get lost in their own thoughts. Emma tries not to think about how miserable he must be to choose oblivion over his life, and realizes that it's becoming too easy for her to forget why she's here; all it takes is just a simple lifting of the corners of his mouth.

* * *

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	8. Babysitting Henry

**Time for some Killian and Henry time; I hope you like it! Thanks for all the reviews and follows, it really means the world to me that you like this story!  
**

* * *

Emma is just about to knock on Ruby's door when it opens, and Ruby almost runs Henry over with her suitcase in her haste to get out of the apartment.

"Oh God I didn't call you last night!" She exclaims, and slams the door shut behind her.

"Where are you going?" Emma asks her, panic creeping into her voice because she needs Ruby to look after Henry; there just isn't anybody else and even if she could find somebody in the next half an hour, she shivers at the thought of leaving her son with a stranger.

"Granny's sick, so I'm going to Honolulu to take care of her until she gets better", Ruby says, already moving toward the elevator. "I'm so sorry Emma, I was gonna call you and tell you that I wouldn't be able to watch Henry, but I was so worried when she called me that I forgot."

Emma is still standing in the same spot, holding Henry's hand and trying to figure out what to do now. Henry is looking between the two of them, his eyes big and round in his tiny face.

"What am I supposed to do?" Emma asks, and Ruby shrugs, stepping into the elevator and holding the door open with her hand.

"Bring him to work with you. Henry's a good boy, I'm sure he's going to behave", Ruby says and lets the door close, an apologetic smile stretching her lips.

Emma glances down at Henry and he looks up at her, waiting for her to figure out what is she going to do.

"Looks like it's bring your kid to work day", Emma says and tugs him toward the other elevator.

* * *

They get about halfway to the house when Henry starts complaining that he's tired of walking, so Emma picks him up and carries him the rest of the way. She'd been alternating between believing that neither Killian nor his mother will mind if she puts Henry in one of the unoccupied rooms and thinking that she's going to get fired on the spot, and since option two makes her break out in cold sweat and carrying Henry just makes her sweat, she feels sticky and awful by the time she turns onto Julian.

She's about twenty minutes late and Leroy is already gone, so she tells Henry to be real quiet while he plays and to stay in the kitchen, and then races down the hall to the living room.

"I'm here, I'm sorry I'm late", Emma exclaims and slides into the room, almost colliding with Killian. She braces her hand on his shoulder and catches her balance, and for a second it's like they are both frozen in place, in time, like the world is spinning on without them before Emma manages to shake herself and step away, pushing hair out of her face.

"I was just on my way to the kitchen to see if you were okay", he says, and Emma steps into his path, stopping him from going forward.

"I'm here now, so you don't have to go there", she says, and the second it's out she knows that he's onto her already, his eyebrow raising and one side of his mouth lifting in a knowing smile.

"What's in the kitchen that you don't want me to see?" He asks her, tilting his head back and trying to catch her wandering gaze as Emma tries to come up with something that would keep him here and keep him from discovering Henry.

"Ruby had to go take care of her grandmother, and I have no one else to leave Henry with, so I kind of brought him here", she finally says, meeting his blue gaze defiantly, fully expecting to hear him say that she can't do that, that this isn't a daycare center, that she either finds a babysitter in the next hour or she's fired.

Killian starts laughing. His shoulders are shaking and he's actually laughing for the first time in three weeks, and her carefully controlled I-don't-care expression shifts into a smile.

"Oh Swan, I thought you had burned the kitchen or something", he says, still chuckling, and Emma can't believe how good it feels to see him laugh and be the one that caused it, even if he had thought she had caused destruction in his house.

"So it's okay that Henry's here?" She asks him just to be sure, stepping back and leaning against the doorway so he doesn't have to strain his neck looking up at her.

"Of course. In fact, bring him here while you make breakfast, he can keep me company", he says, and Emma's stomach drops at the thought of Henry saying something inappropriate, or worse, hurtful to Killian. "Unless you don't want him to hang out with me", he adds, trying to sound nonchalant but she knows him by now, she knows what each little shrug or downcast eyes or the tightening of his jaw means, and she can see clearly that he misinterpreted her expression.

"Don't be stupid", she says, smiling at him and starting for the kitchen. "But keep in mind that he's only four, so if he asks you any questions you don't want to answer just ignore him."

Emma returns to the kitchen and finds Henry still sitting at the table where she had left him and he grins at her, sliding down from the chair when she kneels on the floor and holds open her arms for him.

"Do you remember when we talked about Killian and why I'm here?" She asks him, and Henry nods enthusiastically.

"Because he's hurt and you help him do stuff", Henry says, and Emma smiles, feeling an almost unbearable rush of love for her little man.

"And I also keep him company, so I was wondering, would you like to do it for me while I'm making breakfast?" Emma asks him, holding her breath because she'd rather not have to bribe him with Killian's ship models.

Henry thinks about it for a few seconds, then nods, his face serious.

"I'm not gonna let you down", he says, and Emma laughs, picking him up and carrying him and Bumblebee back to the living room.

* * *

Emma makes toast and tea, listening to the muted sound of Killian's and Henry's voices coming from the living room. She can't make out the words, but it sounds like they're getting along just fine, so she stops rushing around and takes her time with breakfast, making sure that Killian's tea is neither too hot nor too cold.

Henry was absolutely amazing when she had introduced Killian to him, looking him right in the eye and asking how fast his chair can go, and she felt so proud that he had found just the right thing to say.

She can still hear Killian's laugh ringing in her head, and her lips don't know how to stop smiling.

Emma carries the tray to the living room and almost drops it when she sees the scene in front of her, her breath catching and the contents of the plate wobbling dangerously in her hands; it's sheer luck that she manages to set it down on a nearby table without spilling anything.

Henry is sitting in Killian's lap, nestled there like he hadn't just met him fifteen minutes ago, holding a book in his hands that Killian is reading from. They are so wrapped up in the story that they don't even notice she'd joined them, and Emma stands there, listening to the sound of Killian's voice, instantly realizing that the book he's reading to her son is "Peter Pan".

All this time she'd been telling herself that Henry doesn't need a father because she loves him enough for two people, but seeing him like this, it's clear to her that she'd been fooling herself. There are certain things in a boy's life that a mother can't quite touch, and apparently this is one of those because Henry is never as spellbound as he is now when she's reading to him. A tear rolls down her cheek when she thinks about those two years Neal had his son and never did this for him, never gave him attention Henry craved, and seeing Killian with him, seeing how it's supposed to be, she realizes that the wall she had built around her heart may keep out men that could hurt her, but it also keeps out the one who wouldn't, and more importantly, the one who would be a better father to Henry than Neal ever was.

Killian reaches the end of the page and tells Henry to flip it, and Emma wipes at her eyes just as he looks up and sees her standing there, so she gives him a brave smile, hoping he can see in her eyes how much this means to her because she could never find the right words to tell him.

"Henry insisted I read him a story", he says, almost sounding like he's apologizing, and she can't believe her ears.

"He's persistent, isn't he? She says, coming closer and running her fingers through Henry's hair, her eyes still locked on Killian's.

"I found it impossible to deny his request", he says, and Emma gets a weird fluttery feeling in her chest, like something has just shifted between them, something small and impossible to pinpoint, but still so very important.

"Killy let me chose the book", Henry tells her, and Emma raises her eyebrow at _Killy_.

"Shut up, Swan", Killian says gently, his blue eyes taking her breath away.

"Yeah, he does that", she tells Henry, and he beams up at her before leaning his head against Killian's chest and pointing at the pages.

"Read", Henry says, and both Killian and Emma chuckle.

"Breakfast first", Emma tells him and she could swear that when she picks him up from Killian's lap there's longing in Killian's eyes unlike any she'd ever seen before, making her wonder if he had ever thought about having kids before the accident and if that dream got shattered just like his spine when his car went off the road.

* * *

Mrs. Jones comes downstairs for afternoon tea with her son just as she does every day, and she doesn't even bat an eyelash at Henry being there. If anything, she looks overcome with joy, and Emma makes two cups of tea and two cups of hot chocolate with cinnamon, bringing everything back to the living room.

Henry sits next to Mrs. Jones, showing her Bumblebee and trying to explain what it is, his voice raising with excitement until he's practically yelling.

"Tone it down, baby", Emma says softly and he lays Bumblebee next to him when she hands him his mug.

"It's okay, Emma", Mrs. Jones says and takes her tea from the tray, while Emma sits on the armrest of the sofa, offering Killian's mug to him and waiting for him to take the straw.

"What's that you're drinking?" He asks her, pointing his chin toward the mug in her other hand.

"Just chocolate with some whipped cream and cinnamon", she says, bringing the mug closer so he can see.

"Can I try it?" He asks, and even though she's surprised by his request she doesn't hesitate and tips the mug against his lips.

As she watches him take a careful sip, she can't even pretend that she doesn't like the intimacy of sharing her drink with him, especially when his eyes light up and he tells her that it's the best thing he had tasted in a good long while. He's got a bit of whipped cream on his nose and Emma sets his tea down and wipes it away with the back of her hand, grinning like an idiot because today turned out to be the best day not only since she'd been working here, but since the first time Neal had hit her. Her smile wants to falter as it always does when she thinks of Henry's father, but she doesn't let it, because he'd been ruling her life long enough, and it's time she shook him off, left him in the past where he belongs.

What Emma doesn't know is that very soon, she's going to think about this day as the one before everything changed, before she got thrown into a fight she can't afford to lose, for both Killian's sake, and her own.

* * *

**Review?**


	9. The Gamechanger

**I can't tell you how much it means to me that you love this story, and I hope you keep reading and loving it, because these two are going to have the happiest ending imaginable. Eventually.**

* * *

The downpour starts just as Emma comes out of the bus so she breaks into a run, holding her bag above her head to try and keep her hair from getting wet. By the time she reaches Killian's house she feels soaked to the bones, and she slides inside with a grateful sigh, doubled over in the hallway until she catches her breath, dripping water all over the floor.

Emma kicks off her shoes and drops her bag, pushing wet strands of hair out of her eyes, before she proceeds to the kitchen where she uses the paper towels to dry herself as best as she can. She's about to go back to the hallway to clean up the mess she'd made when Killian appears in the doorway, shaking his head at her.

"What are you doing?" He asks her, and she raises her eyebrows at him even though she knows it's a rhetorical question.

"What does it look like I'm doing?"

"Trying to catch your death staying in that wet dress. Go upstairs and ask my mother to give you something to wear", he tells her and she shakes her head, mortified at the thought of borrowing Mrs. Jones expensive clothes.

"It's fine."

"No it's not", he says, and there's something in his tone that makes her pause, and she's got to admit that she likes it that he cares about her wellbeing as much as she does about his.

"Okay, I'm going, but I'll tell her it was your idea, not mine", she agrees, albeit reluctantly, casting one long look around the kitchen to make sure that there's nothing he could use to hurt himself.

She feels his eyes on her when she finally exits the kitchen and climbs the steps, resisting the urge to turn back and ask him if he's sure about this, telling herself that Mrs. Jones won't mind lending her something for just a couple of hours.

When she reaches the first floor landing Emma looks around, trying to figure out where to go to find Mrs. Jones as quickly as she can, but then she hears the faint sound of conversation and follows it to a half-opened door that must be leading to the master bedroom. She's just about to knock when the words Mrs. Jones is saying register, and Emma freezes in her spot, for the first time since she came inside feeling cold and shivery.

"I know it's too painful to see him like that, Charles, because I'm the one doing it every single day, while you're sitting half a world away in an empty house refusing to spend time with your son. If he goes through with it, if he… commits assisted suicide, five months from now you won't have a son, and I guarantee that you're going to regret not coming here for as long as you live."

Mrs. Jones' voice is cracking, but Emma can't hear tears in her voice, just resignation and desperation that make her feel horrible for listening in, but she simply cannot move.

"I don't know, Charles. She'd only been here a month, and Killian's better when she's here, but as soon as she leaves he goes back into his shell. She's the best thing that happened to us, but saying that she's going to make a difference and make him rethink his decision of ending his life… It's too optimistic and I can't give you false hope. Can't you just come here and try to talk some sense into him?"

Emma backs away from the door and descends the stairs in a daze, ducking into one of the rooms and closing the door behind her, biting her lip and trying to find another explanation for what she had just heard beyond the obvious: Killian is going to pay someone to take his life, and his mother is going to let him do it.

Her first instinct is to gather her stuff and just leave, but Mrs. Jones' words keep echoing in her head and she finds it impossible to abandon Killian like that. If there's a 1% chance that she can make him change his mind, she has to stay and try because she knows she wouldn't be able to live with herself if she didn't.

Emma bypasses the kitchen and sneaks into Killian's room, quickly taking off her soaked dress and putting on one of his T-shirts and sweatpants, rolling up the too long legs so she doesn't trip on them. His clothes feel so soft against her goosebumped skin and she stands there inhaling his scent and wishing she can redo today and go straight here instead of upstairs. It takes her a while to make herself move, hang her dress over the tub and go back to the kitchen to find Killian waiting for her.

"I didn't want to disturb your mother", Emma tells him before he can comment on her choice of clothes, turning her back to him and putting the kettle on before she starts making breakfast. She's afraid to even look at him, afraid that he'd see in her eyes that she knows the truth and ask her to leave.

"Well, Swan, you certainly look good in my shirt", he says, and she can't resist, looking at him over her shoulder to see him grinning at her like he just told her the best joke in the universe. Emma can feel her chin trembling so she turns back to the sink, staring at the bay and telling herself that she will not cry; she has to keep everything inside and pretend that nothing's wrong.

"Yeah, I know, that wasn't funny. But it's something I never thought I'd see again, a woman wearing my shirt", he says and leaves the kitchen, but Emma doesn't have the strength to follow him just yet.

She wishes this day could be over, so that she can go back to Henry and stop thinking about the tragedy she'd found herself in the middle of, stop imagining waking up one morning and finding out that she had failed, that Killian is no more.

* * *

"Okay, Swan, that's enough. Put the fork down and tell me what's on your mind", Killian says after she drops another piece of potato on his lap. Emma picks it up from his thigh and sets it on the corner of the plate, shaking her head.

"It's nothing", she says, her voice calm even though she's yelling at him in her head, asking him over and over again how can he even think of hurting his own mother in such a horrible way.

"It's not nothing. Is it Henry? Is he okay?" Killian asks her, tapping his fingers against the joystick like he'd want nothing more than to be able to lay them on her shoulder and shake her until she gives him an honest response.

"Henry's fine", Emma says, her eyes catching on his for the briefest of moments, and the note of genuine worry in his voice almost makes her loose the tight rein she's got over her emotions.

"Then what is it?" He demands, his eyebrows coming together in a scowl, and Emma tries to think of something that would appease him and stop him from trying to figure out the real reason for her behavior.

"You wouldn't understand", she says holding out the fork, but he keeps his mouth stubbornly closed until she puts it down.

"Try me", he says, and it sounds like a dare, and since once upon a time Emma Swan was the first to accept those, she looks him straight in the eye and tells him something that's been bothering her lately and that she can't talk to anybody about. At this point, any subject is better than him ceasing to exist five months from now.

"Ruby keeps trying to set me up on dates and no matter how many times I tell her that I don't want to go, she won't back down. I know she only means best, but it pisses me off."

Killian tilts his head a little to the side, and it's clear that she's not fooling him, but he decides to let it go and focus on what she just told him.

"Does she know about Neal?" He asks her softly, and she shakes her head, looking down at her feet.

"Just that he's Henry's father and that I left him, but not…" she trails off, unable to finish that sentence.

"But not that he hurt you", Killian does it for her, and Emma looks up, the look on his face almost enough to break her. He looks like a vengeful God ready to smite the one who did her wrong, and she can't believe that he'd figured it out so easily, and that he's actually angry at Neal on her behalf. The line between employer and employee gets even blurrier than it already was, but she doesn't care.

"How did you know?" She asks softly, and he shrugs, his face smoothing itself into something unbearably gentle, the look in his blue eyes making her think that he'd do everything to take her pain away; she knows that look well because she'd been looking at him the same lately.

"As I said, open book", he tells her and gives her an encouraging smile. They both know that today is not the day she tells him the whole story, but it's good to know that she's got somebody she can tell when she's ready.

If she gets ready to tell him in the next five months, because if she waits too long there's a possibility he won't be able to hear her anymore.

* * *

The rain stops by the time Emma comes out of the house and starts to walk toward the bus stop, carrying her dress in a bag because it's still a little wet. She doesn't care about people looking at her funny because she's still wearing Killian's clothes, she doesn't care that her ponytail is messy because her hair dried on its own and she couldn't be bothered to try and tame it after learning that the date of Killian's death has been set and if she doesn't find a way to change his mind, she's going to lose him.

Emma stops midstride, for the first time realizing that her reaction goes beyond concern for her employer; most people would just feel sad that Killian's life is so difficult and hopeless that he had decided to end it, but she feels sheer desperation to keep him alive because she can't imagine not seeing him and talking to him and knowing she never will again.

She makes it to the bus stop, sits on the bench, and finally lets herself fall apart. After spending the past month with Killian, slowly discovering the man that he is and maybe even falling for him a little bit, it's like a slap to her face that all this time he'd been plotting his own death. Still, she's not crying for her, she's crying for him, for all the pain he went though and still goes through every day, and what hurts the most is that she can almost understand his wish to let it all go and rest.

Almost.

When the bus arrives Emma Swan wipes her eyes dry and lifts her chin, because this time, she's not going to run away from pain. This time, she's going to hold her ground and do everything in her power to convince Killian that there are still things in his life worth living for, and one of those things is her.

There's a nasty little voice in the back of her mind telling her that this isn't a battle she can win, that the only thing she's going to get for her efforts will be a broken heart, but Emma doesn't listen.

Everybody says that true love is worth fighting for, and she's going to try and find out if that's the truth, if these feelings that are starting to stir inside her could grow and someday be reciprocated, and maybe, just maybe, it's going to be enough to make Killian change his mind and stay.

* * *

**Review?**


	10. I'll Fight For Him

**Thank you so much for giving this story a chance, I'm so glad you like it! And don't worry, the happy ending is already written and you're gonna love it, but first buckle up for the bumpy ride...**

* * *

Emma sits next to Henry's bed and watches him sleep, trying to come up with some kind of plan. She knows that in order to convince Killian that life is worth living, she needs to get him out of the house and show it to him. Trouble is, she doesn't know how to do that.

Her sleep is restless that night; she's tossing and turning and feeling like the most inadequate person in the world to help him find the will to live, but she finally finds some peace around four a.m., falling into a deep dreamless sleep. Her alarm clock goes off way too soon and she pushes it off the bedside table, and in that first moment of wakefulness she doesn't remember yesterday, she doesn't know that she's got five months to make one of the truest hearts keep beating.

And then it hits her so hard she has to sit up because she can't seem to draw a breath.

Help arrives in the most unexpected way as she takes Henry to Ruby; he asks her when are they going to go see the ships again, and she realizes it's the perfect excuse to get Killian out of the house. After all he's a navy captain, so who better to show Henry around the harbor than him?

Before she speaks to Killian about it, she feels that she needs to fill in his mother first, tell her that she knows everything, so after breakfast she puts on some ridiculous action movie Killian wants to watch and sneaks upstairs.

Mrs. Jones looks surprised when she tells her that they need to talk but shows her into the library nonetheless, and Emma sits down on the sofa, hunting for the right words.

"I overheard you on the phone yesterday", she finally blurts out, biting her lip and giving Mrs. Jones an apologetic smile.

"Excuse me?"

"Killian sent me upstairs to ask you if I could borrow some of your clothes because I was caught in the rain coming here and… I heard you and your husband on the phone", Emma clarifies, bracing herself for whatever comes next.

Mrs. Jones presses her hand to her mouth, lowers her head and just falls apart, her thin shoulders shaking under the weight of what she's facing, and Emma feels awkward just sitting there so she puts her arms around her gingerly, ready to back off if need be. To her surprise, Mrs. Jones returns the hug and holds on, and Emma feels so scared because if the classiest woman she knows can lose it like this, then she must think that it's over and that her son is dying soon.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, but I was afraid you wouldn't take the job, and I didn't know what else to do", Mrs. Jones says, her tears soaking Emma's shirt, and Emma blinks away her own tears, trying to keep her cool.

And then she thinks about Henry, thinks about being in the same situation as Mrs. Jones is and her heart starts hammering painfully because it's every mother's worse nightmare and she doesn't know how Mrs. Jones usually manages to hide her pain so well.

"Why did you agree to it?" Emma asks her gently, because she doesn't understand, not really. She doesn't know how Mrs. Jones could have helped Killian contact the people who will help him end his life.

"Because he threatened he'd stop eating and drinking if I didn't let him die with some dignity. You probably think that I'm a horrible mother, and I don't blame you, but I simply didn't know what else to do", Mrs. Jones says, pulling away from Emma's embrace and looking at her with eyes so similar to Killian's that Emma has to look away.

"And how… how does it work?" Emma asks, her voice breaking because she doesn't want to know, doesn't want to even think about it, but she feels that she must.

Mrs. Jones blows her nose and turns her handkerchief in her hands a couple of times before she finds the strength to speak.

"On July 19th, a certain doctor will come and administer a lethal dose of his usual medicine. If everything goes according to plan, Killian will fall asleep and never wake up again", Mrs. Jones says softly, and she looks so small and frail, so different than her usual regal self that Emma can't help reaching out her hand and gripping hers tightly.

"That's not going to happen", Emma says firmly, looking up until she's certain she's not going to cry and taking a deep breath before she goes on. "We've got five months and we're going to show him that life is still worth living."

"How?" Mrs. Jones asks, and there's a glimmer of hope in her eyes and she looks so relieved that Emma wants to help and she's not alone anymore.

"By getting Killian out of the house and making him live his life. We're going to find out what he can still do and he's going to do it; I'll find excuses, tell him it's for me or for Henry or whatever the Hell he needs to hear, but by the end of it he's going to change his mind."

Mrs. Jones is nodding in time with Emma's words and a there's a tentative smile stretching her lips when she speaks.

"I'm going to help you in any way I can, and money isn't an issue; whatever you need, you just ask me for it. And don't tell Killian you know."

"Why not?"

"Because if you do, he's going to ask you to promise not to try changing his mind", Mrs. Jones answers, and Emma realizes that it's the reason she's not doing anything; she had promised her son she wouldn't, and in return he's giving her six months to make peace with his passing.

Emma lets go of Mrs. Jones' hand and stands up to leave, hoping she's not giving her false hope when she tells her that everything is going to be okay.

* * *

"Where did you disappear off to?" Killian asks when she marches back into the living room and Emma rolls her eyes at him, her cover already well thought through.

"Contrary to what you think, I do stuff around here", she says and glances at the TV. "How's your movie?"

"Rubbish. I was waiting for you to return so you can turn it off."

"What, death count is too small?" Emma teases, taking the DVD out and putting it back into its box.

"And the fight scenes are horrible", he says and Emma smiles to herself as she walks over to him, cornering him against the desk.

"I need a favor and you can't say no", she tells him, hoping that if she makes it seem like it's already a done deal he'll go with it.

"Oh really?" He asks and arches his eyebrow at her; he looks so charming, and if she didn't know better, looking at him like this she would never be able to guess that he'd already given up, that he's living what he thinks is one of the last months of his life. It makes her sad and panicky, but she'll be damned if she lets him see it on her face.

"Yes, really. You promised we'd go out beyond the garden, and we never did", she says, and he widens his eyes comically, like he can't believe that she just said that to him.

"I was sick that day!"

"And now you're not sick, so next week you're going to come to the harbor with me and Henry and explain to him about the ships", she says, trying to sound nonchalant and praying that for once he doesn't see right through her.

"I'll do it if you try to find your parents", he says without any hesitation, his eyes telling her that he doesn't think she'll do it because he knows how much that wound hurts her.

"Deal", Emma says, barely resisting the urge to stick out her tongue at him. If he thinks she's going to back off for any reason he can come up with, he's in for a big disappointment.

Somewhere along the way keeping him alive has become the most important thing in her life.

"I'll contact my orphanage after we get back from taking a walk round the block", she tells him and moves out of the way so he can pivot the chair toward the door. "After you."

He shoots her a long suffering look but he moves past her and Emma releases the breath she hadn't even realized she'd been holding, but it's all the celebration she allows herself because she knows this is just the first battle won, and the war is far from over.

* * *

Emma catches up to Killian right outside the house and puts a baseball cap on his head, smiling when he gives her a quizzical look from under its brim.

"The sun is the worst at this hour", she tells him and puts her own cap on, knowing that he'd probably get huffy if she only made him wear it.

"I admire your organization skills", he says sarcastically as they start for the garden door that leads out on the street.

"One of the perks of working for such a demanding employer", she tells him good-naturedly, giving him a wink and opening the door for him. The street is deserted and the sidewalk is perfectly even, and after a while he seems to relax, laughing when she almost trips over her own feet because she's too busy admiring one of the mansions farther up the street.

"Watch your step, Swan", he tells her and she thinks that she'd never stop tripping if it always made him laugh like this because she can't think of another sound she'd rather listen to.

"These houses look more like fairytale castles than anything else", she says, wishing she could've grown up somewhere like this instead of that gloomy orphanage.

"They are all the same. You should see what we have back home; really marvelous architecture."

"And where in England is home, exactly?" She asks, jumping at the opportunity to learn more about him.

"Surrey. It's really beautiful there in the summer", he says wistfully, and she can't help wonder if he's thinking that he's never going to see his home again.

"Do you have like a huge mansion with hired help and horses and a butler?" She asks, trying to stop his good mood from slipping. He smiles at her eager expression and nods.

"I suppose you can say we do. It's not as big as some of our neighbors', but we do have hired help and horses and a butler. After the accident, when mum came here, good old Croft offered to come with her. Naturally, she had to leave him behind, because who would take care of my father if Croft was gone", he says, his eyes darkening as they always do when he talks about Mr. Jones.

"Seems like you got along better with your butler than you did with your father", Emma says, and he shrugs, staring down at his feet for a while before speaking again.

"Croft is everything my father isn't; he's kind and patient, he really listens when you talk, but if you do something wrong he makes you clean up your own mess. His wife can't have kids, so I guess I was the son he always wished for."

They reach the end of the street and Emma realizes that Killian is probably going to do for Henry what his butler did for him; take care of him the way his father should have but didn't. Inevitably, she thinks about the possibility of her failing, and what would it do to Henry if Killian was gone, because after those few days she had to bring him to work with her he couldn't shut up about _Killy_. It's not too late to call everything off because she supposes it's only going to get worse next week after they spend a day together looking at ships, but she can't bring herself to do it. She needs all the help she can get, and right now Henry is her best bet at turning this thing around.

It's a matter of life and death, and she may be a bad mother, but she'd rather break her son's heart than keeping him out of this and then living with regret for the rest of her life, wondering what could've been if she had played the card of fatherly love.

"Swan? Where are you?" Killian asks her, tilting his head to look up at her, and she smiles, telling herself that she will not fail, that nobody's heart is going to get broken.

"I'm right here", she says, thinking that it's true in more ways than one, in more ways than she can explain or let him know about.

She's right there next to him, and she's going to stay, hoping that she's going to be enough to make him want to stay too.

* * *

**Review?**


	11. Show Me the Ships

**Thank you for such a positive response, and have some more daddy!Killian feels!**

* * *

Henry wakes her up around 5 a.m. climbing up on her bed and jumping up and down until she opens her eyes and squints at the clock.

"We have to go mommy, Killy is waiting!" He exclaims excitedly and Emma groans, lifting the covers and settling him against her side.

"It's too early baby, Killy is still asleep, just like we should be", she tells him, hoping that this isn't one of those nights when insomnia plagues Killian and makes him listless the next day, and all she wants to do is somehow erase the dark circles under his eyes.

"You promise?" Henry asks and she promises, rubbing his back until he goes back to sleep.

She lies there listening to her son's breathing, hoping that everything goes okay today, hoping she doesn't end up disappointing either Henry or Killian.

* * *

Leroy wasn't too enthusiastic about their outing when she first told him about it, but he agreed to drive them all to the harbor and stick around just in case they need him.

Emma arrives with Henry a little earlier than usual so she can make them all sandwiches and leaves him with Killian and Leroy, feeling both jittery and excited.

When they're ready to go Mrs. Jones comes downstairs to see them off, which annoys Killian to no end.

"Mum, come on. You're behaving like you did on the day I started first grade", he says and she leans down and presses her lips against his cheek, embarrassing him further. "Damn it, Swan, this is all your fault."

Emma can't help chuckling because even though he's trying his best to sound grumpy and act like going with her and Henry is the last thing he wants to do, she can see that Henry's excitement is rubbing off on him.

Leroy uses the lift to get him into the van and Emma carefully secures his chair, triple checking everything to make sure it's going to hold once they get out on the road. Meanwhile, Henry can't stop asking questions about the ships they are about to see and Killian is too busy answering him to complain about her methods.

By the time they reach the harbor Henry is practically bouncing with glee and as Emma releases Killian she sees him looking at Henry with such affection she feels her heart contracting. It's the look Neal had never given Henry, and she feels grateful that Henry finally got to experience it.

"Ready?" She asks when she's done, laying her hand on Killian's shoulder to get his attention.

"Ready", he says, and then they face the world outside the van together.

* * *

People are staring while pretending not to stare. As they part for them like the Red Sea for Moses, they follow Killian with their eyes and Emma can tell that some of them are desperately trying to figure out what is her and Henry's connection to him; the obvious conclusion would be that she's his wife and Henry is his son, but these people can't see past the chair and it hurts her more than she ever thought it would.

Henry is oblivious to everything but the ships looming ahead and above them, climbing into Killian's lap after a couple hundred feet and chatting to him non-stop, Leroy and Emma following close behind.

She can practically see the tension melting out of Killian's shoulders because Henry doesn't care if he can walk or not; all he needs is his undivided attention, and the fact that Killian understands and shares his fascination with the ships is only a bonus.

They climb aboard U.S.S. Missouri and Emma can't tear her eyes from Killian's face because he actually looks happy, truly happy for the first time since she came to work for him. He looks around the deck lovingly, and Henry follows his gaze with open mouth, silent for the first time today because he feels that something important is happening.

The tour guide is giving a lovely speech, but neither Killian nor Henry are listening.

"What's that?" Henry asks, pointing his finger and listening to Killian's answer like it's the gospel truth.

"And that?"

"Those are the guns. This ship was actually the only one to fight back when Pearl Harbor was attacked, which was the day United States of America joined World War II."

And so it goes on as they move around, but Henry and Killian can very well be alone for all the attention they're not paying to Emma and Leroy.

"I have to admit, I was skeptic about your idea, but seeing him like this, I'm glad I agreed to take you. If you keep this up, he just might change his mind", Leroy tells her when the two of them finally give up on the tour and lean against the railing, soaking up the sun and looking at Killian and Henry moving up the deck.

It's been about an hour since Emma had last thought about Killian's death plan and Leroy's words hit her even harder because Killian is smiling at Henry and it seems impossible that he'd ever go through with it.

"You know about that?" She asks, surprised because she had thought it was a big secret to keep the trouble with the police to a minimum afterwards, since assisted suicide is illegal in the US.

"I eavesdropped to one of Mrs. Jones conversations. Can't say that I blame Killian for deciding to call it a life, though", Leroy says and Emma gets the weirdest urge to punch the lights out of him.

"How can you even say that?" Emma asks him incredulously, careful to keep her voice low so it doesn't carry to Henry and Killian.

"I told you on your first day; chances of him getting better are slim to none, and it's a safe bet that he's going to get worse. Why would he stick around for that?"

"You just said that I might succeed and change his mind", Emma snaps, and he holds up his hands in surrender.

"I said you might, not that you should, especially if you don't intend on crossing that weird line you too are dancing on", Leroy says and looks at her pointedly, but Emma avoids his eyes and shrugs.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're not just his caregiver; you haven't been for quite some time now, if you ever were. You two obviously like each other, but I can tell you one thing: that guy with your son? He's never going to make the first move. He's going to fall in love with you and he's not going to say a damn thing because he doesn't think he can have you", Leroy tells her, and she raises her eyebrows because Killian is never hesitant with any subject, and she's certain that if he actually liked her like that, he'd tell her so.

"If anybody's out of anybody's league, he's out of mine", Emma says wistfully, her eyes inevitably drawn to him across the deck.

"What, because he's rich?" Leroy says and gives her a mirthless laugh. "In case you haven't already caught on, he sees himself as damaged goods. You're young and beautiful and whole, so if you want him, first you're going to have to convince him that he'd be enough for you."

"Do you two talk about me when I'm not there or something?" Emma asks, feeling a little lightheaded because it's like she'd finally seen the light, finally acknowledged that her feelings for Killian are growing stronger every day and that they go way beyond friendship.

She wants Killian, and now that she had admitted it to herself, he's suddenly everything she sees, even Henry momentarily forgotten as she studies his beautiful profile, longing to find a way to make his see that he's nothing less than perfect to her.

"I egg him on, he tells me I'm being ridiculous, but we both know I'm right, just like you know I'm right", Leroy says and Emma just nods; when Killian looks up from explaining something to Henry and his eyes find hers like she's his true north, she feels like he'd just handed her his heart along with his crooked smile.

* * *

The tour ends and they leave the ship, Emma sitting on a bench next to Killian's chair while Leroy goes back to the van for sandwiches. Henry is sprawled over Killian's lap, sleeping with his head buried in the crook of Killian's arm and Emma thinks that neither of them had ever looked more content. Since her talk with Leroy she can't quite hold Killian's gaze for more than a couple of seconds, all the while grinning like an idiot, but thankfully he's too preoccupied with Henry to notice.

"Shouldn't you take him? What if he shifts and falls?" Killian says and Emma shakes her head, scooting closer just to make him stop worrying that Henry isn't safe in his care.

"He's fine… Unless he's bothering you?"

The look Killian gives her makes it clear that Henry couldn't bother him if he tired tap-dancing on his head, and Emma feels like she'd won the lottery because no matter what Killian thinks, he's a keeper and she intends to prove it to him. Trouble is, she doesn't exactly know how to start.

"Swan?"

"Yes?"

"I'm glad I came with you today… that accident took the sea away from me and today you gave it back", he says, and she bites her lip and tries to downplay her role in this because the tone of his voice slices her deep inside.

"We made a deal, remember?" She says because he's supposed to think that today was for Henry's benefit, not his own.

"Yeah… How's the parents' hunt going?" He asks, following her attempt to change the subject and looking at the horizon where the ocean meets the sky. Emma doesn't answer his question right away because she's too busy pulling out her cell phone and taking his picture with Henry, freezing them forever like they are today; relaxed, beautiful, and so very young.

"Still waiting to hear from the orphanage. It doesn't look promising, though", she tells him, ignoring his arched eyebrow because what's weird about taking a picture of your son sleeping on your employer's lap? She leans against the bench and closes her eyes, enjoying the sun on her face, thinking that the weather today couldn't be more perfect; the breeze eases the ever-present Hawaiian heat and the sky is cloudless, exactly the color of Killian's eyes. She inhales the smell of the ocean, the harbor and fast food, smiling when Killian's scent separates itself from the rest and makes her tingly all over.

"Maybe we should hire you a private investigator", Killian says and Emma opens her eyes, looking at him and shaking her head.

"I don't have that kind of money", she tells him sheepishly because even though Mrs. Jones' paychecks are really generous, she'd been saving as much as she can in case… Just in case.

"I could lend you money; you can pay me back when your parents turn out to be rich", he tells her with an easy smile and she loves him for offering but she can't take his money.

"They were probably crack addicts and they're long dead", she says, trying to keep bitterness out of her voice.

"Have faith, Swan", he tells her softly and she thinks that if he could, he'd reach across the empty air separating them and squeeze her fingers.

Leroy comes back with the food and drinks and Emma shakes Henry gently; he sits up, nestling around Killian's lap until her finds a comfortable position and then refuses to move. Killian just shrugs and they let him stay where he is, and Henry holds up his own sandwich patiently until Killian takes a bite of it, his eyes dancing when he meets Emma's gaze.

She sits there barely eating, staring down every person who dares to look at Killian with anything except a smile; a few little old ladies come over and tell them that they make a lovely family, deliberately ignoring Leroy who hides his smile behind his hand.

Neither Killian nor Emma correct them, and her heart flutters every time he smiles at her like she really is his and Henry really is theirs.

* * *

Henry starts crying when he realizes that they are returning to the van and going home, and nothing Emma says can make him stop. Killian ducks his head and catches his tear-filled eyes, promising him that they are going to come back soon and the reality crushes down on Emma, because if they don't come back in the next five months, she's going to have to bring Henry here alone.

The ride home is silent and when Leroy parks outside their apartment building Henry scrambles off her lap and goes into the back of the van, thanking Killian for a lovely day. Killian's impeccable manners are clearly influencing him, and Leroy just looks at her silently. Emma ignores him because what does he expect her to do; go back there and kiss Killian goodbye?

"It was my pleasure", Killian says, looking at Emma, and suddenly it's like there are a million butterflies flying around her stomach, trying to come out.

She wants to touch him so badly that she can practically feel him on her fingertips.

"See you tomorrow", she says, getting out of the van and opening the back door to let Henry out.

"Can't Killy come home with us?" Henry asks her and she looks at Killian for help.

"Too many steps, laddie", Killian tells him and Henry's face falls. "But you can come visit me again whenever you want. We still haven't finished reading Peter Pan."

"Okay", Henry says and pats Killian's hand before finally letting Emma help him jump down on the sidewalk, and then he turns and gives Killian a wave and a brilliant smile, making her realize that whatever happens in the next five months, it's already too late; Henry is as smitten with Killian as she is.

* * *

**Review?**


	12. Caught in This Storm

**This chapter might make you cry because Killian kinda falls apart, but luckily Emma is there to comfort him and they get even closer in the process. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for all the nice reviews!**

* * *

Emma spends most of the weekend in the library, looking for places she could take Killian and things they could do. She discovers an online community for people with spinal cord injuries, their families, lovers and caregivers and after that it's fairly easy for her to fill the calendar she bought with various activities around the island. The bigger problem is going to be tricking Killian into doing them with her, but she gets the feeling they're in a stage of their relationship where he wouldn't be able to tell her no.

When she gets to work on Monday, first thing she does is call the number one of the caregivers had shared with her and in a couple of hours two IT guys arrive and set up a voice activated software on Killian's laptop, that allows him to surf the web, make phone calls and write e-mails.

The first number she programs into it is her cell phone, looking at him pointedly before she goes back to the kitchen to make lunch and lets him tinker with everything.

* * *

Emma is in Killian's room vacuuming when she realizes she hadn't heard him talking to the laptop in a while, and the feeling of dread that comes over her is worse than ever before. She drops everything and races through the house, finding Killian staring at the picture of a beautiful woman on his screen, silent tears rolling down his cheeks. The vacuum cleaner is still howling and Emma debates whether or not she should leave him to grieve alone, but when he notices her and tries to wipe his face on his shoulder she realizes that she wouldn't let him deal with this alone even if he asked her to.

"There are a million pictures of me in this house and not a single one of us together", he says, and Emma comes closer, catching his tears with her fingers and realizing that perhaps she should feel jealous that even after two years he still isn't over Milah, but she's not because it's proof that when he loves, he truly loves. "I guess that's what you get when you sleep with a married woman."

Emma doesn't even blink because she had a feeling that their relationship wasn't a conventional one.

"How did you meet her?" She asks him, studying Milah's picture and trying to see what was it that still keeps Killian spellbound when he looks at her.

"I was on leave and my mates took me to this bar. She was there alone and came right up to me and asked me to tell her a story. I thought she was the most magnificent woman I'd ever met."

Emma looks down at him and he gives her a sad smile that breaks her heart because she wishes she knew how it felt to have somebody love you like that.

"She told me right away that she's married for a man she never loved, but they have a son so she stays with him. I just didn't care, so we kept meeting every time I was on leave, until the day I got her killed", he says, his voice getting softer with each word, and Emma ignores the burning in her sinuses and keeps wiping his silent tears away.

"You didn't get her killed; it was an accident", Emma says and he sighs heavily, closing his eyes and shaking his head.

"The police never found the SUV that tried to force us off the road but I have no doubt that her husband found out and decided to make us pay", he says, and Emma thinks that it must be horrible knowing who's responsible for the death of your love and your condition and not being able to do anything to make him pay.

"She knew what she was doing", Emma tells him gently, and he looks up at her, waiting for her to continue, and she can see that he's going to take absolution from her because he can't get it from Milah. "She was obviously unhappy in her marriage, and you made gave her what she was looking for, so I think she'd rather have had that time with you, no matter how short it was, than living a hundred years without you."

"Do you really believe that, Swan? That it's better to live and love for a few years than not love at all and live to be a hundred?"

"I do", Emma says, and it's a painful reminder that her time with him is slowly but surely running out.

"Good. Can you go and shut up that bloody hoover now?" He says, and they both chuckle, a bit embarrassed because the conversation they've just had was way too personal for their respective roles in each other's lives, but that had never stopped them before.

* * *

Storm clouds start gathering after lunch but they make their way into the back garden anyway, watching the sky close, the wind making Emma shiver in her T-shirt.

"You want us to go back inside?" Killian asks her, but she shakes her head vehemently, keeping true to her plan to get him out of the house every day, even if it's just to the garden.

"I'm fine. Are you cold?"

"Underneath this fluffy flowery blanket?" He asks her, looking down at himself in disgust, and Emma tucks it closer around his shoulders.

"I'm not going to be responsible for you catching your death", she says, her voice wavering a little on the last word, but she covers it up with a cough.

"Were you always this stubborn or is it a recent development?" He asks her, grinning when she smacks his shoulder.

The first drop of rain lands on Emma's nose and she jumps up from the bench like she'd been stung, making Killian laugh. An occasional rain drop turns into a full on shower and Emma starts for the house, turning every few feet to make sure that Killian is following her as quick as he can. It's not quick enough and by the time they reach the back door they are both soaked to the skin; Emma wrings out her hair and leaves Killian's blanket on the porch rail before they go inside.

He looks up at her through wet hair falling into his eyes and when he speaks she feels heat racing through her veins even though she should be shivering with cold.

"I guess you're going to have to call Leroy to come back and get me out of this shirt."

There's challenge in his blue gaze, but only because he thinks he knows how she's going to react. After all, up until then she let Leroy take care of it every time she managed to spill something while feeding him, but she knows that Leroy is going to be extremely huffy if she calls him back an hour after he had left. Since the blanket managed to protect Killian's sweatpants pretty well and she can always blow dry the wet spots, the least she can do is change him into a dry shirt, right?

"I would never hear the end of it if I called him for something as trivial as changing your shirt", she tells him, starting for his bedroom and smiling when she sees the look on his face after he realizes that she intends to actually strip his semi-naked.

"Swan, c'mon, you don't have to do it. It's not even that wet", he says, still parked in the hallway.

"Don't tell me you're embarrassed to show a little skin", she tells him playfully, even though she knows exactly what worries him. She learned a lot about SCIs since she had come working for him, and paralysis is just one of the side effects.

"Swan", he says, and she pauses in the doorway of his room and looks back at him, and there must be something in her expression that makes him finally come forward. "You're changing first."

He moves past her and Emma rolls her eyes, crossing over to his dresser and pulling out two shirts, smiling because she never returned him that shirt and sweatpants she had borrowed last time she got caught in the rain and he had never asked for them.

Still facing the wall, Emma takes off her wet T-shirt, quickly unhooks her bra and slips his shirt over her head.

"Happy?" She asks and turns around, smiling because his mouth is half opened and there's no doubt that he enjoyed the show.

"Bloody Hell, Swan", he says softly, and Emma stands in front of him, feeling a bit uncertain now that she's about to attempt to undress him. She tells herself that it's no different than doing the same for Henry, but it is different because Killian is not a child and she wishes she could do this with him in an entirely different context.

He notices her hesitation and since he is who he is, he just looks at her, his blue gaze making her squirm because this is turning into something she hadn't expected and doesn't quite know how to handle.

Emma bends his right arm gently and guides it out of the sleeve, then walks around and does the same with the left, acutely aware of every inch of his skin underneath her fingers, bracing herself for impact when she finally slides the wet shirt off over his head.

She bites her lip, practically feeling her pupils dilating because she likes him and she doesn't care about scars standing out against too pale skin or anything else except how much she wants to trace patterns in his chest hair with her fingertips. Before she can do anything stupid she skips off to the bathroom and returns with a towel, drying him off and trying not to show him how much this is affecting her. It's ridiculous that she's so turned on because a) she's supposed to be his caregiver and b) even if he felt the same as she does he couldn't do much about it. It's unfair and frustrating, but it doesn't stop her from wanting him, from wanting to figure out a way to make love to him because she knows there is a way even if it's not the easiest or the most straightforward.

"If I didn't know better I'd think you have the hots for me", Killian says, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. She can't stand the self-deprecation in his voice so she meets his gaze square on, knowing that she shouldn't say what she's about to say but needing to make him stop thinking that he's somehow less of a man just because he paralyzed.

"Would you fire me if I did?" She asks, dropping the towel on the bed and taking the fresh shirt to put it on him, an amused smile playing on her lips because he's trying really hard to come up with something witty to say but it seems that she had effectively shut him up.

* * *

Emma lays in bed that evening, catching herself thinking about his pale skin criss-crossed with scars, about his chest hair and prominent collar bones and biceps and forearms and-

Her cell phone rings and she dives for it to make sure it doesn't wake up Henry.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Swan", Killian's voice sounds like velvet in her ear and for a moment she's confused, but then she realizes Leroy had probably set up the laptop on the bedside before he left for the evening. "Did I wake you?"

"No, I couldn't sleep. You?" Emma asks, smiling because the first person he called after finally being able to use the phone at will was her.

"Same. I've been thinking about what you said", he says, and Emma closes her eyes, feeling as close to him as she would if he were laying in bed next to her. She can practically feel everything spinning out of control and it's both scary and exhilarating.

"I said a lot of things today", she says softly, and for awhile he's silent and every breath he breathes in her ear reminds her that he wants to cut them short.

"I just wanted you to know that I'm glad that my mother found you", he finally says, and even though it's far from a declaration of his undying love, under the circumstances, it's more than she had hoped for.

"I'm glad she found me too", she tells him, and after they hang up she stares at the darkened ceiling for a long time, thinking about him and wondering if he's thinking about her too.

* * *

**Review?**


	13. Not a Date

**I can't thank you enough for all the lovely reviews and general squeeing, and I hope this chapter gives you more feels and reasons to come talk to me. Enjoy!**

* * *

The perfect opportunity for Emma to make Killian go out again presents itself when he gets an e-mail from his childhood friends; their band is touring in the U.S. and they are going to play in a bar in Honolulu next Friday, so if he wants to come, they'd be delighted to see him there.

"Are we going to this thing or what?" Emma asks him, reading the e-mail over his shoulder, already working out the logistics of getting him there; Leroy will grumble, but he's going to help in any way he can because he genuinely cares about Killian.

"Of course not", he says, looking at her like she had lost her mind.

"Oh come on! Why not?"

He just shakes his head and closes the e-mail without responding to it, and Emma's lips compress before she storms off.

The worst thing is, she understands. She knows that he doesn't want his friends to see him like this, and she wishes she could show him that they wouldn't care; they miss him, and she suspects that it's not a coincidence that they are playing in Hawaii, wondering what Mrs. Jones had told them to get them here.

* * *

As soon as the bedroom door closes after Killian and Leroy after lunch, Emma hijacks the laptop, downloads both of the band's available albums and burns the CDs because she's not going to let this go without a fight.

She's ready to play those CDs until she knows every song by heart and until Killian agrees to take her see them, but she's not ready to discover that there's a song on the first album for which he sings back-up vocals. Just as the song starts playing she reads his name on the album jacket and she freezes, waiting to hear his voice, shivers running down her spine when she does because it sounds so beautiful.

"Of course he can sing", she says dazedly, pleasantly surprised that she likes most of the songs she'd listened to so far. What started out just as means to an end turned into her genuinely wanting to go see this band.

Leroy waves at her in passing and Emma turns toward Killian, who pauses at the doorway and glances at the stereo that's playing the second album.

"Let me guess", he says, coming closer, his eyes locked on hers. "You just listened to their albums and now you're completely in love with their music and you want me to take you see them."

"How did you guess?" Emma says, raising her shoulders and pressing her hands to her heart, smiling at him like he just hung the moon for her. He rolls his eyes at her over-dramatics and shakes his head.

"Why is it so important for you that I go and watch my friends fall over themselves trying to pretend that there's nothing wrong with me?" He asks her, and even though his voice is carefully controlled, he'd never been this angry with her before.

"The only thing wrong with you is that you let the chair define you", Emma tells him bluntly, knowing that it's the only way to make him listen.

"It does define me, Swan", he says, and he sounds so tired that she feels guilty for pressing him, but then she remembers that her time is running out and that she's not going to accomplish anything if she lets him stay closed in this house.

"It doesn't. Yes, you need it to get around, but you're not the chair; you're you", she says, wishing that there was a way he could see himself through her eyes.

"How very zen of you, Swan", he says, and she wishes she could either knock or kiss some sense into him.

"I'm going to play those two CDs non-stop until you agree to take me", she tells him and pats his shoulder on her way to the kitchen.

"I won't change my mind", he calls after her, and she takes a deep breath before she pokes her head around the doorway, and says:

"Yes you will."

She tells herself that if he changes his mind about this, he's going to change his mind about ending his own life too.

* * *

A week has passed and she had accomplished her mission of learning all the songs, but Killian's still stubbornly refusing to go. She tells herself that there's still time, and manages to hold onto hope until Thursday morning, and then she forces herself to face the cold, hard truth; she can't even make him change his mind about this little thing, so she sure as hell won't be able to change his mind about leaving pain and discomfort behind.

She mopes around the house, feeling defeated and hopeless and so very, very sad, and she can't even bring herself to make small talk.

"Swan?" He says, breaking her out of her reverie, and she realizes she'd been staring at the bookshelf instead of dusting it off.

"Yeah?" She asks, turning around and telling herself silently to get a grip and toughen up.

"Is it really that important to you that we go to the gig?"

Hope sings through her instantly, and Emma nods enthusiastically, and when he just smiles, she rushes forward and throws her arms around him, so relieved that she doesn't care if this is crossing the line.

"Thank you", she exclaims, laughter bubbling out of her mouth because everything is going to be okay; she's going to keep him on this Earth and he's going to let her, just like he lets her have everything else she wants.

* * *

It's Friday afternoon and Emma is already home so she can get ready and Leroy and Killian will pick her up when it's time to go.

"Is this a date?" Ruby asks, sitting on Emma's bed next to Henry and watching her try on various outfits and discarding them all.

"Of course not", Emma says, unable to keep a grin from stretching her lips.

"But you'd like it to be", Ruby says matter-of-factly, and Emma doesn't even try to deny it. "Does he know that it's a date without being a date?"

"We pretend that I really want to see the band even though he suspects that my sole mission in life is to get him out of the house", Emma says softly, looking at her empty closet and then back at Ruby. "I have nothing to wear."

"Sure you do", Ruby says and pulls a red dress out of the heap and offering it to Emma along with her own leather jacket.

"It's not a date!" Emma says, staring at the dress with wide eyes, refusing to take it.

"That man obviously needs to have his head checked if he can't see how you feel about him, and I think this dress is bound to make him see the light", Ruby says, and Emma finally takes it and puts it on, barely recognizing herself in the mirror.

"You're very pretty, mommy", Henry tells her and she smiles down at him, shrugging on the jacket.

"Thanks, baby. Be good for Ruby, okay?"

"I will. I hope you get a goodnight kiss from Killy", he says and Emma laughs, knowing that it's not going to happen but still wishing that it would.

* * *

Leroy and Killian show up at precisely 8 p.m. and Leroy drives them to the Sunset bar in Honolulu, and Emma talks to Killian without turning around so he doesn't see the dress.

It doesn't take them more than fifteen minutes to reach their destination and Emma exits the van first and waits for the lift to bring Killian down. When he finally turns the chair around and faces her they just stare at each other for a while because she's not the only one who had made an effort to look presentable.

Killian is wearing jeans and a black button down shirt, and if she's not gravely mistaken someone had actually styled his hair, making him look even more beautiful than usual.

"Swan, you look-" He trails off, giving her one of those rare genuine smiles, and she returns it, coming closer and slipping the price tag under the collar of the shirt.

"Thanks. You're not looking bad yourself", she says and follows him inside, glad that Leroy had excused himself and went off on his own.

Since it's still early, they are among the first people who trickle in, and as soon as the word gets to the band that Killian is here they come out and Emma stands back a little, watching them envelop him in manly hugs and smiling because they all seem genuinely happy to see him.

She doesn't mind being alone at the bar because it's important for Killian to reconnect with his friends, and it's good to see him enjoying himself like this. When it's time for the band to go get ready Emma leads the way to their table, which is in the corner and as close to the stage as it can be without actually being on it. She sits down and Killian parks his chair next to hers a couple of minutes later, and she grins at him, barely stopping herself from saying "told you so".

They order their drinks and sip them slowly, and when the lights in the bar dim and the bend comes on stage, they blend in with the other patrons and Emma loses herself in the music, glancing at Killian every once in a while and waiting until he looks at her so she can give him a beaming smile he returns every time.

The arm rest of Emma's chair is right next to the arm rest of Killian's and she brushes her knuckles against his hand often because those two glasses of juice-vodka are making her brave and she just wants to touch him.

And then, his fingers entwine with hers and she feels like a school girl on a first date, telling herself it's just her hand he's holding, not her heart, and knowing that she's lying to herself.

The band plays a slow, sad song, and Emma lays her head on Killian's shoulder, closing her eyes when he rests his cheek against the top of her head, thinking how easily we adapt; he can't put his arm around her and pull her into his lap, but he does what he can and in her opinion, this is even better.

When the concert ends she tilts her head back and glances at his lips, their faces so close that all he needs to do is move his head just a little bit and she'd finally know how it feels to kiss Killian Jones.

Their eyes meet and Emma breaths in when he breaths out, spellbound with the galaxies in his blue eyes, waiting for the kiss that doesn't come because one of his friends comes over and asks them if they want to come hang out backstage.

It's like Killian finally remembers where they are and he pulls away without actually pulling away because he's perpetually stuck in the same position, but Emma feels the distance as surely as she would if they were on opposite ends of the island. She releases his fingers and stands up, trying not to show her disappointment to anybody, least of all to him.

* * *

Emma sits in an armchair, her thoughts drifting, her eyes stuck on Killian as he discusses people and places she doesn't know, studiously avoiding to look at her.

"Hey Jones, how about you sing us a little tune?" The lead singer of the bend says and reaches for his guitar. Emma sits up a little straighter, unconsciously leaning forward in anticipation.

"Oh come on, you know I suck", Killian says with a laugh and finally glances at her. She nods encouragingly, for the moment forgetting that she's sort of mad at him for not kissing her.

And so he sings the very song he sang the back-up vocals for once upon a time, the one she finds herself listening to the most, the one titled "Perfect Stranger". As his incredible voice wraps around her like a blanket, Emma can't help feeling that every word is for her, and hopes that the lyrics come true someday soon and that she really turns out to be his savior.

* * *

Leroy picks them up after midnight and drives them back to Pearl City, neither of them saying much except that it was a good show.

Emma says "good night" when Leroy stops the van and exits it without giving Killian a chance to say anything, walking away and mourning the wasted opportunity, wishing he could've been just a little bit braver than he was.

"Emma", Leroy calls after her and she turns around, lifting her eyebrows in annoyance.

"What?"

"Killian needs to tell you something."

Emma huffs and walks back, opening the side door and staring him down.

"Well?"

"Come closer", he says, and Emma gets back into the van, about five seconds away from busting his lip for being such an idiot. "Closer."

She finally understands, and then he's kissing her, his warm lips so sweet against hers, so alive, so _perfect_. He pulls away too soon, displaying his English properness in all its glory, the kiss short but with just enough tongue that she's left wanting more.

"Good night, Swan", he says softly, looking at her from under his eyelashes, and she goes back out dazedly, closing the door and watching the van disappear around the corner.

She knows that when she comes to work on Monday everything will be back to the way it was, their kiss ignored and never mentioned again, and there's a tiny part of her that wishes she hadn't gone back for it because now she's completely lost; she can still feel her lips burning, she can still taste him on her tongue and she doesn't know how to recover from the realization that this was both their first and their last kiss.

* * *

**Review?**


	14. Mothers and Lovers

**I'm so glad you loved the last chapter and the kiss, and don't be afraid; the ending is already written and it's super happy! Thanks for reading and reviewing/favoriting/following; I squee like an idiot every time I get an e-mail notification!**

* * *

Just as Emma had predicted, when she gets to work on Monday Killian doesn't mention his goodbye kiss, and it would be like it had never happened, if they didn't keep catching each other staring, and then quickly looking away. Emma thinks it's incredibly childish and pointless, but her pride prevents her from saying anything and after a while they both learn to get over it.

And yet, no matter how hard Emma tries to forget about the kiss, she can't. For that entire week she finds herself standing in the kitchen, staring off into space and remembering how it had felt to feel his lips pressed against hers, the scruff on his chin pleasantly scratching her as she inhaled his scent and wished for forever even though she knew he couldn't give it to her.

"Swan, your cell phone won't stop ringing, don't you hear it?" Killian yells from the living room and Emma jumps, looking around in search for her phone, finally realizing that she had left it on the coffee table this morning.

She drops the plate she'd been washing for the last five minutes in the sink and runs through the hallway, sliding in her socks on the polished hardwood floors, her stomach tied into painful knots at the thought that something had happened to Henry, because who else would be calling her except Ruby?

"Bloody Hell, Swan, pick it up!" Killian exclaims when she finally dives into the room and she fumbles for the right button before finally saying a breathless "hello" into the receiver.

"Yes, this is Emma Swan", she says, breathing a relieved sigh and shaking her head when Killian mouths Henry's name. She's momentarily distracted because his mind went in the same direction hers did, and it's good to know that he cares about her baby too, even though she doesn't want to analyze why it's good too closely because it only gives her false hope.

The person on the other end of the line is some guy calling from her orphanage and she rolls her eyes, waiting for him to get to the point. She's a little annoyed that it had taken him so long to call her because she had already given up on hearing from him, but then he tells her that he's got a phone number for Mary Margaret Nolan, the woman who is Emma's mother, and her stomach drops to the floor. He rambles on about lost paperwork or some nonsense but Emma's not listening, dropping down on the armrest of the couch because her legs won't hold her up. She stares at Killian, unable to get over the shock and find her voice to ask if this is just some sick joke.

"Swan, what is it?" Killian asks in a stage whisper and she puts the guy from the orphanage on speaker because she doesn't know how to deal with this alone.

"Would you like me to send you a text with your mother's phone number? Miss Swan?" The guy asks, sounding uncertain because Emma hadn't said a word for over a minute.

"Send it", Killian says when Emma still doesn't respond and the guy says he will, apologizes again and hangs up, like his apology can take back Emma's entire lifetime as an orphan. She's completely out of it, staring at the phone in her hand like she doesn't know how it got there. The room is completely silent as she and Killian sit and wait for the text to arrive. When it does and Emma opens it, the digits of her mother's phone are just a blur because even though she doesn't want to cry, she can't stop the burning in her sinuses and the tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

"Swan", Killian says gently and Emma lifts her teary eyes to his, returning his cautious smile because finding your mother is a wonderful thing, and no matter the reason Mary Margaret Nolan had for abandoning her, she obviously wants to get into contact now.

"My name was supposed to be Emma Nolan", she says, the surname sounding both foreign and familiar in her mouth.

"You're still my Swan", Killian tells her with a crooked smile and she laughs through her tears, leaning forward and wrapping her arms around him because no matter what happens next, he was the one who made this happen when he encouraged her to go looking for her parents.

"Thank you", Emma says, closing her eyes and holding on tight, his warmth and closeness all the comfort she needs.

"Don't even mention it", he says, his lips grazing her ear, and Emma pulls away, somehow finding the strength to let him go, her heart beating too fast because she can't be this close to him and feel nothing.

She wipes away her tears and takes a deep breath, wondering why is it always like this with them; what starts as a friendly gesture turns into something more, something too intense and a little bit scary because she had never felt like that with anybody else, not even Neal.

* * *

"So… When are you going to call your mother?" Killian asks her that afternoon as they follow the bike path running parallel to the bay. Emma shrugs and just keeps on walking, not sure what to tell him because she still hasn't decided should she even call her mother. "Swan?"

"I don't know", Emma finally responds, looking everywhere but at him because she gets the feeling that he's giving her the eyebrow and she can't deal with it right now.

"What do you mean you don't know? You do plan to call her eventually, right?" He seems as exasperated as she had expected he'd be and it pisses her off.

"You don't understand", she tells him sharply, looking down at him with her lips pressed into a thin line.

"Well than make me understand", he says, his eyes flashing with challenge, but Emma isn't in the mood to talk. She realizes that this walk was a bad idea because she's got nowhere to go here and he's not going to stop prodding her until she tells him everything. The only way to escape him would be to return home without him, and since that's out of the question she's pretty much stuck.

"I don't want to talk about it", Emma says and stares at the ground, so lost in her own thoughts that it takes her fifty feet to realize that Killian is no longer beside her. She whirls around, almost expecting to see him sinking into the bay along with his chair, but he's just sitting in the middle of the path and serenely waiting for her to get back to him.

"I'm not moving from this spot until you tell me why you don't want to talk to your mother after spending your entire life wondering who she is and why she gave you away", Killian tells her and Emma throws up her arms in exasperation.

"Why is it so important to you that I call her?" Emma asks, glaring daggers at him and wishing she could just gag him to shut him up.

"Because it's important to you", he says, and all her anger leaves her as fast as it had appeared, the honest look in his eyes disarming her completely.

"Fine, I'll tell you. But let's get back home first; it's too hot out here", she says and waits until he pivots the chair, thinking about what could've happened to him all the way home and swearing she's never going to do anything this stupid again, no matter how distracted she gets.

* * *

Emma makes a pitcher of lemonade and they settle in the coolness of the living room, Killian looking at her like he's trying to read her thoughts but not saying anything or trying to rush her as she searches for the right words to explain to him why she's so reluctant to call her mother.

"I was one when they brought me to the orphanage, so I don't remember anything about my parents, and the only thing I have of theirs is a blanket with my name embroidered on it in purple letters", she says, remembering how she used to drag that blanket with her everywhere she went, and how it had to be confiscated on every school day because she kept trying to sneak it in the classroom. "When I was three, a family adopted me and I thought I was the luckiest girl in the world, but next year they had their own baby, so they sent me back to the orphanage."

Killian closes his eyes for a moment and then lifts his hand in silent offer of comfort. Emma takes it, his pale fingers enveloping hers as she tries to swallow the lump in her throat before she starts speaking again.

"I still remember that day in first grade when we were supposed to draw our parents and I sat there staring at the paper and debating which crayon to use for my mother's hair because I had no idea what she looked like. The teacher finally noticed my dilemma and took yellow and black crayons, hiding them behind her back and asking me to pick a hand. I ended up using black for my mother and yellow for my father, and after all these years I came to accept that I'm never going to know if I was right", Emma tells him, her voice shaking because she had always kept this buried deep inside where it couldn't hurt her, but as the words spill out she feels better, lighter somehow.

"You don't want to call your mother because you're afraid of finding out the reason she abandoned you, forcing you to grow up without even a picture of her", Killian says, and Emma smiles faintly because he zeroed in right on the issue, unlike Neal, who never even asked her about her parents and probably wouldn't have understood even if she had told him the crayon story.

"Maybe her trying to contact me is nothing but her guilt finally catching up to her and she only wants to make sure that I'm okay. Maybe she won't even want to meet me, much less try to make amends. Maybe-"

"Maybe she never wanted to give you up in the first place, Swan", Killian says, tugging on her hand until she looks up at him. "The point is, you won't know until you call her."

"I don't think I'm ready for that yet", Emma says, and he nods in time with her words.

"You don't have to call her right away, Swan, but don't let your fear of what's going to happen when you do stop you from calling her at all", he tells her and just like that, Emma realizes she's in love. It's not that teenage infatuation she felt for various boys all through high school, nor the heady feeling she felt at first with Neal; this is something more, something deep and calm and hopeless because he doesn't think he should reciprocate.

She looks at him and just knows that this love is forever. This love asks for nothing but Killian's presence, and she feels a painful stab deep in her chest at the thought that in four months' time he might not be here with her. She grips his fingers tighter, wishing she could keep him here by sheer power of her touch, by the pressure of skin on skin and all the things they can still do together.

"You two returned quickly from your walk", Mrs. Jones says from the doorway, making Emma and Killian drop each other's hands like they've caught on fire.

"It was too hot", Killian says, recovering first and giving Emma a smile that hits her right where it hurts the most; her heart.

"I'm going to go make you your tea", Emma says and escapes to the kitchen, wondering how much longer she's going to be able to keep doing this weird two step with Killian before it breaks her beyond repair.

* * *

**Review?**


	15. Picnic

**You guys are too good to me and I can't thank you enough for all your positive feedback. Now, this chapter... It's painful. You might need tissues to get through the middle part and I'm sorry, but it was time Killian adressed his accident and they both realized that Emma was there.**

* * *

Emma sets a wicker basket on the floor just outside the doorway to the living room, and when she enters it, she knows from the glint in Killian's eyes and the tone of his voice that today's going to be a good day.

"So, I was thinking, maybe we could go on a picnic", she says, sitting down on the back of the sofa and leaning on her hands, watching him from under her eyelashes, her lips lifting in a hopeful smile.

"A picnic?" He asks, and it's clear from his surprised expression that he never saw this one coming.

"Yeah, you know, eating food under some tree with a view of the ocean", Emma says, her smile growing wider when he grins at her because it means he's not going to fight her today.

"And how would we get to this hypothetical tree with a view of the ocean?" He asks her and she pulls the keys of Leroy's van out of her pocket, jingling them in the air.

"We take a little ride to the North shore, spend some time in the sun and get back before Leroy comes back", she tells him, pushing away from the sofa because he seems on board with the idea and she can't wait for them to get going.

"Does this mean he had to take the bus?" Killian asks her and chuckles, and Emma giggles, his good mood making her feel like she's on top of the world. It's a little scary how much she cares about him and how hard it is for her to watch him on those days when there are dark circles under his eyes and it feels like he's not even there with her.

"He was surprisingly gracious about it", Emma says, going to retrieve the basket and bringing it to him to show him the contents of it.

"Well of course he was. He's fond of you; you could ask him for anything and he'd do it gladly", Killian tells her, peering into the basket she's holding against her knee and Emma gets the feeling that they aren't really talking about Leroy anymore, but she tells herself she's just hearing what she wants to hear.

And then he looks up at her and she's lost in his eyes, lost in the blue and in the emotion behind them, wishing for so many things she's never going to have.

* * *

The van isn't as easy to handle on the road as a car is, and since Emma hasn't driven either for two years she focuses all her attention on the road, only realizing that Killian's good mood is gone when they reach the park she chose for their picnic.

"What's wrong?" She asks him as she lowers the lift down, a little panicked because she can't figure out what changed in less than an hour since they left the house. "Are you in some kind of pain?"

"You picked the highway that took everything from me", he tells her flatly, moving past her toward the beach. Emma's mouth is open and she stands there frozen, gripping the remote for the lift and desperately blinking back tears.

She watches Killian park his chair next to a picnic table under a tree with branches extending toward the ocean and presses her hand to her mouth to keep a sob from escaping; instead of helping him see that there are still things worth living for she only succeeded in reminding him of the worst day of his life.

It takes her a while to calm down and face him again but she tells herself that it's her own mess and she better find a way to fix it, so she locks the van and carries the wicker basket to the table, sitting on the bench next to Killian and staring at the waves with him, hunting for the right words to apologize.

"It's okay, Swan. You couldn't have known where it had happened. I'm sorry I overreacted", he says, glancing at her for the briefest of moments before he returns his stormy eyes to the ocean.

"I kept telling myself that it's too great a coincidence, but I should've asked", Emma tells him, and he looks at her in confusion. "On the day me and Henry landed on the island two years ago we passed by an accident on the highway, _that _highway."

"Was it on March 15th?" He asks her so softly she can barely hear him and she nods sadly. The date she's always going to remember as the one that marked her freedom is also the one that took away his.

They sit in silence for a while, both contemplating the universe's message to its creation and what it's supposed to mean, if it even means anything instead of just being a useless parallel.

"I remember waking up in the hospital, staring up at those ugly green tiles and trying to move, trying to tell myself that it's just the meds keeping me from it, that Milah is still alive and nothing's wrong, all the while knowing that I'm just deluding myself." He closes his eyes and Emma feels her stomach drop because it seems like he had decided to tell her everything and she's not certain she can take it without crying. "The nurse came in and leaned over me and told me that everything's going to be fine, but her eyes betrayed her lie and I spent hours afterwards trying to wake up because it had to be a nightmare; I just couldn't accept that this was supposed to be my life. By the time my mother arrived with the doctor I worked myself into a full on panic attack and they had to sedate me to calm me down."

Emma doesn't know what to say, so she reaches for his hand and holds on, wishing there was a way to comfort him, to take these memories away and make his pain disappear. This was the last conversation she wanted to have with him, today or ever, but she senses that she's the first person he shared this with and no matter how much it hurts to hear it, she can't tell him to stop.

"The doctor told me that I can forget ever walking again, but that I'll probably get the feeling in my hand back after a while, and he sounded so proud of himself that I told him to sod off and leave me alone. You can imagine my mother's reaction", he adds, a mirthless laugh that sounds more like a sob bubbling out of him. Emma grips his fingers tighter and his thumb starts caressing the back of her hand even though she doubts he's even aware he's doing it. She focuses on their hands because she can't watch emotions play over his face anymore, she can't see all the pain in his eyes and keep it together.

"My mother told me that my hand was stuck and that they had to cut it off to get me out of the car, but I didn't believe her until they finally let me sit up two weeks later and I saw for myself," he says and Emma glances at his stump, covertly wiping her face with her free hand. She looks up but his eyes are closed and if it weren't for the ceaseless motion of his thumb on her skin she'd think that he's not even aware of her presence.

"I spent six months in the hospital and it had been so bloody awful that I was actually hopeful by the time I went home because I thought things would get better once I left that hellhole."

He pauses and she takes long breaths through her nose because she's desperately trying to stay silent, to keep her tears inaudible; if he can be so stoic in the face of his own tragedy, then she can be too, even if she feels on the verge of breaking down completely.

"I'm tired, Swan. Tired of this life and how limited it is. Tired of being stuck in the same position all day long because it's still better than lying in bed and just staring at the wall. Tired of needing help with every little thing I used to do without even thinking about it."

He opens his eyes and looks at her, breath hitching in her throat because he'd never been like this and it's scaring her, making her think that she's not going to be enough to keep him here. When he gives her a sad, sardonic smile she can't take it anymore, so she closes her eyes and lets her head fall against his shoulder as she embraces his waist with her free arm.

"I'm so sorry", she chokes out, her shoulders shaking with silent tears because she finally understands, finally knows everything that's behind his death wish.

And yet, as she clings to him and feels his lips against her forehead, she still wants him to stay with her, she still can't find a way to let him go.

"Shhh, come on Swan, don't cry. Please calm down", he murmurs and tugs a little on her hand; she tilts her head back and looks up at him, still blinking back tears so they spill down her cheeks because she can't stop crying no matter how hard she tries.

"Don't be nice to me because then I'll never stop", she tells him and he chuckles, shaking his head.

"I don't know how not to be nice to you", he says and she sighs, wiping her face on his shirt.

"You're nice to everybody", she says and he looks horrified.

"I bloody well am not! I'll have you known that I've driven off countless caregivers before you", he says and Emma finally cracks a tiny smile.

"Were they all really that horrible to you?" She asks him, desperate for a change of subject so she can breathe again.

"No. They just weren't you", he tells her and Emma wishes he would stop staying things like this to her, wishes they could both keep their distance, but the more time passes the harder it gets and the less successful they seem to be.

"All this crying has made me really hungry", she tells him and he laughs, rubbing his stubbled chin against the top of her head before she lets him go and takes out their sandwiches and a bottle of iced tea.

Afterwards she goes to the ocean and gathers a tiny pool of water in her hand, carrying it carefully across the beach to Killian so she can pour it into his cupped palm. She closes his fingers around it and wishes she can do the same with his will to live.

* * *

The drive home takes twice as long because she goes all the way around the island, ignoring his protests and having to stop for gas because she's fairly certain Leroy would kill her if she returned the van to him with empty tank.

There's a stand with sunglasses next to the register and Emma buys a pair on an impulse, sticking them in her hair until she gets back into the van.

"What's with the aviator shades?" Killian asks and she grins at him, taking them off her head and setting them on his nose.

"Just thought they would look cool on you", she says and winks at him and he looks at her over the rim, raising his eyebrow in question. "And they really do."

Emma turns around and starts the car, puts her own sunglasses on and cranks up the volume on the radio because it's Springsteen; she takes it to be a good omen because it's probably the only singer they both love.

Somehow, despite all the tears and the pain they shared just a few hours ago, they find themselves flying down the interstate, signing along with the Boss at the top of their lungs.

It makes her wish they never had to reach the end of the road.

* * *

**Review?**


	16. Just You and Me

**Sorry about the sad feels in the last chapter; this one is going to give you a bit more of those and a lot more of happy. Thank you for reading and I hope you keep enjoying this story!**

* * *

Killian is silent all morning, giving her curt, monosyllabic answers but she doesn't think that there's something wrong because of their talk at the picnic last week and because he keeps saying that he's fine. It's only when he refuses lunch and looks at her with eyes just a little out of focus that she realizes that he's sick.

Emma leans close to him and presses her hand against his forehead, finding it too hot for comfort.

"Jesus, Killian. You're not fine, you're burning up!" She cries, his name escaping her lips for the first time, but he's so out of it he doesn't even notice.

Thankfully, Leroy comes in just then so she doesn't have to deal with it alone. Mrs. Jones had left for England that morning and Emma can't believe how badly timed it was, then feels guilty for even thinking it; it's not Killian's fault that he's sick.

"Emma, bring the antibiotics", Leroy hollers from Killian's bedroom and she jumps, turning on her heel from where she'd been pacing in the hallway and racing to the kitchen, grabbing the medicine, a glass and a pitcher of water and going back to Killian's room.

"I'm here", she says, standing in front of the open door, hesitant to enter unannounced in case Killian's not decent.

"Well come the fuck in then, what are you waiting for, a court order?" Leroy grumbles, and it scares her because underneath his harsh tone he sounds more worried than he ever was before.

Killian is laying in the bed, cold compresses on his forehead and chest, his eyes closed under furrowed brows. Emma had never seen him like this and it barely registers with her that he's wearing only his boxer shorts because she's too concerned for his wellbeing.

"Make him swallow the pills", Leroy says offhandedly, bathing Killian's painfully thin legs with a wet towel.

Emma sits on the bed next to Killian and says his name a few times before his eyes finally open and he manages to swallow the pills, almost choking on a few mouthfuls of water.

"Shhh, it's okay", she says, turning the cold compress on his forehead over and running her fingers through his damp hair in a soothing motion that always works with Henry when he's sick.

"Don't worry about me, Emma, I'm fine", he says, and she's fairly certain that he's not aware that he's talking out loud because he never calls her Emma.

"Should we call 911?" Emma asks nobody in particular, pressing her free hand to her chest because her heart feels like it may be beating out of it.

"Not yet. He hates the hospital and if we drag him there before doing everything we can to help him here we won't hear the end of it for months", Leroy says, and Emma looks up from Killian's face, her eyes meeting Leroy's, and they both know what the other's thinking; months are all that Killian has left.

They spend the afternoon bringing Killian's fever down and when it finally eases Emma feels like she'd been through a war. She's exhausted both emotionally and physically, but seeing Killian look at her and actually recognize her makes her forget about everything except that he's going to be okay.

"Are you hungry?" She asks unnaturally softly, as if sudden movements or loud voices could somehow harm his fragile condition.

"Do we have any more of those cookies?" He asks equally softly and Emma smiles, pushing a strand of hair that keeps falling into his eyes away from his forehead.

"I think I can find some", she tells him and he starts to nod, then looks at himself and realizes what state of undress he's in, staring at his legs in horror like he'd never seen them before.

"And a lot of tea", Leroy calls from the bathroom, but Killian closes his eyes, pulling away from Emma in the only way he can.

"Hey", Emma says, poking him in the shoulder because she won't have this, won't let him be ashamed of his own body, especially not in front of her.

"What, Swan?" He asks and looks at her from under dark eyelashes, and she gives him a crooked smile before speaking.

"You should get to beach ASAP. Your legs are really pale."

For a second he looks stunned, but then he gets it and one corner of his lips lift in a slow smile.

"Pick a beach and I'll be there", he says and Emma grins wider, barely stopping herself from leaning down and kissing his cheek before she goes to find him his cookies and make tea. Every step away from him on her way to the kitchen feels like she's walking in an entirely wrong direction.

* * *

Leroy can't stay with Killian overnight because of some kind of a family emergency, and he looks pretty bewildered at the thought of either leaving Killian alone all night or admitting him at the hospital for no good reason, but Emma tells him that she's going to stay with him without even thinking about it.

She calls Henry and tells him that he's going to stay at Ruby's tonight and he tells her that it's okay because Killy needs her more than he does. Emma doesn't know what she did to raise such a perfect child and since she's still a little shaky from what happened today she tells him goodbye and hangs up before she can fall apart.

Killian's efforts to get her to go home are feeble at best, but even if they weren't she'd still stay because he never frightened her like this and she just wants to makes sure that there's somebody here in case the fever returns.

"More tea?" She offers for the fifth time in two hours and he gives her a sideways look, shaking his head.

"Maybe later. Or never", he says and she rolls her eyes at him.

The room is dimly lit with just a table lamp on because she's too tired to get up and turn on the lights, and he probably doesn't care. She yawns and closes her eyes for a minute, realizing that she'd dozed off when his voice brings her back, making her sit up straight and blink a few times.

"Go to sleep, Swan", he tells her, and she frowns.

"Where?"

"There are about a dozen rooms in this hallway; pick one", he says and she shakes her head slowly, staying exactly where she is.

"I pick this one."

"You can't keep your eyes open", he points out and she shrugs.

"It's not even 10 p.m."

"What does it matter? You're obviously tired and that chair can't be comfortable", he says, raising his hand as far as it can go and pointing at the door. "Go."

"What if you need me?"

"Then I'll call you", he says with a charming smile, and it's a small victory that he admits that he might in fact need her, but she's not falling for his charm.

"What if I can't hear you because I'm too far away and too deeply asleep?" Emma counters, giving him a lazy smile because she can do this all night; convincing a four year old to do something he doesn't want to do asks for a lot of patience and a good strategy.

Killian thinks about it for a moment, opens his mouth to say something, then closes it again.

"What?"

"I was about to offer you my bed, but then I realized that you could probably sue me for sexual harassment", he says, his amused expression making him look young and careless, and Emma decides to take him up on it.

"Yeah, I probably could", Emma says, getting up from the chair and kicking off her shoes.

"Swan, what-" He starts to say and she grins, taking off her jeans and tank top which leaves her in her bra and comfortable pink panties that probably look like something Ruby's grandmother would wear, but she really doesn't care.

"Relax. You didn't actually offer, so I can't sue you for anything", Emma tells him and slides under the covers next to him, closing his gaping mouth with her finger under his chin before she lays her head on the pillow next to his.

His bed is more comfortable than any bed she had ever lain on in her entire life. It's like floating on a cloud, and she shifts around a bit, enjoying the sensation until their knees collide and she freezes.

"Sorry", she murmurs, smiling sheepishly.

"Didn't feel a thing", he tells her, still looking at her like he can't believe that she's really here with him, that they are closer than they'd ever been before.

"Your bed is amazing", she says, bunching her hands under her cheek, unconsciously trying to measure the distance between their noses and if he'd be able to kiss her if he wanted to. The lamp is casting his face in shadow and she gets an almost unbearable need to reach out her hand and trace her finger over the scar on his cheek to see how it feels.

"Perk of the condition", he tells her, and for the first time he doesn't sound bitter because he's too busy staring at her. She can't figure out what's so shocking about her coming to sleep with him and wonders if maybe it's his upbringing, all those private schools and proper manners.

"Tell me about England", she says and he smiles, finally recovering from her impulsive decision to come to his bed. He closes his eyes and describes his home, longing coloring his voice because he hadn't been there since before his accident and it's pretty clear that it's weighing him down.

"Why don't you go back?" She asks him softly, and he shrugs, opening his eyes and looking at the ceiling like he can see the answer to her question written there.

"At first I couldn't travel, and I wanted to be where Milah was, but now… I don't want to see those places from the chair; I want to remember them from the right angle."

"Do you think-" Emma starts to say, then trails off, realizing that her question is probably too hurtful.

"Out with it, Swan", he says, and she smiles faintly, her eyes finding his and holding on.

"Do you think this life, being in the chair, would be easier for you if you hadn't done all the things you did?"

"Probably. But I would never trade my memories for anything", he says, and Emma realizes it's exactly the answer she had expected. She'd never been as acutely aware of their familiarity as she is now, and when her eyes start drooping she fights the sleep off, wanting to stay like this with him just a little while longer.

"I always wanted to travel and see the world, try to find places that nobody knows about", she tells him softly, for the first time sharing her biggest dream with another person.

"There's still time", he says, and she doesn't have the heart to tell him that she doesn't want to see it without him.

* * *

Emma falls asleep in the middle of his description of the view from the Eiffel Tower, her hair hiding one side of her face like a rich golden curtain. Killian's hand moves like it's got a will of its own, but it doesn't get far enough and he sets it back down, his impulse to brush her hair away unfulfilled.

He closes his eyes, feeling frustrated and angry because he'd give everything he possesses to be able to pull her against him, entangle their legs and just hold her as she sleeps, but there's nothing he's got that could grant him that wish.

As if she senses his mood even in her sleep, Emma scoots closer, pressing her nose against his neck and sighing softly. He rests his cheek against the top of her head, inhaling the smell of her flowery shampoo and realizing that tonight he's the luckiest man in the world because no one is closer to her than he is.

His Swan girl is sleeping on his shoulder and he doesn't want to miss a single moment of it, so he stays awake for a long time, listening to her breathe and the words mumbled in sleep that sound a lot like his name.

* * *

**Review?**


	17. Hello

**As always, thanks for all the feedback! Somebody asked how many chapters left, and it's 7 + epilogue after this one.**

* * *

Emma wakes with her head on a distinctly male shoulder and for a horrible second she's deathly afraid that the past two years had been a dream and that she's still trapped with Neal, but then she inhales Killian's scent, and she knows that she's safe.

Once she remembers last night and figures out why she's in his bed, Emma lays next to him in exactly the same position she woke up in, her eyes still closed, her fingers wrapped around his bicep, her entire body pressed against his under the covers as she breaths him in and wishes she could be waking up to this every morning.

The reason she's keeping her eyes closed is that she doesn't want the reality to set in, doesn't want to move and have to leave this bed, so she drifts like that, half-asleep and half-awake until Killian lets out a whimper and what sounds like "Emma, no".

Emma sits up and looks down at him, realizing that he's still asleep, his eyes moving quickly under his lids, his breathing becoming labored. At first she thinks that the fever has returned but when she lays the back of her hand against his forehead it's not hot at all, and so she comes to the conclusion that he's having a nightmare and that it's got something to do with her.

"Shhh, it's okay, I'm here", she says softly, running her knuckles down the side of his face and murmuring reassurances until his breathing returns to normal.

Now that the nightmare has passed, he looks more serene than she had ever seen him, the lines on his forehead smoothed, his full lips partway opened and those ridiculous eyelashes looking like butterfly wings against his cheeks. She could watch him like this forever but it's almost 7 and Leroy is going to be here any second, and she really doesn't want him to find her in Killian's bed because he'd jump to the wrong conclusion and she's pretty sure Killian would be embarrassed.

If someday something actually happens between them, she's going to be proud to be caught in Killian's bed.

She slowly disentangles herself from him, giving in to the urge to kiss his cheek before she gathers her jeans and top and tiptoes out of his room.

"When I told you to keep an eye on him, I didn't mean for you to sleep in his bed" Leroy says, almost scaring the life out of her when he separates himself from the dark shadows in the hallway.

"We were just sleeping", she says defensively and Leroy crosses his arms in front of his chest.

"Then why are you sneaking out of there in your underwear?"

He finally cracks a smile and she realizes that he's teasing her, so she puts on her clothes and asks him for his van keys.

"Why?"

"I haven't seen Henry since yesterday morning. I'll be back in two hours tops, and considering that I covered for you last night, you can hang around one extra hour until I return", Emma says, waiting with her hand outstretched, palm up.

To her surprise, Leroy doesn't grumble at all, fishing the keys out of his pocket and laying them in her palm.

"Bring Henry. Killian's staying in bed today, so he's gonna be climbing the walls soon, and what's a better distraction than your kid?"

"I will, thanks", Emma says and grins as she leaves because Henry is going to be so happy to spend another day with Killian.

* * *

Henry is quiet on the ride over but Emma chalks it up to being early in the morning, only realizing her mistake when she lets him into Killian's room and he gets into bed with him, asking him if he's so sick that he's going to die.

Both Emma and Killian are too stricken to answer him, and they just stare at each other over Henry's head for a long moment. Killian recovers first and tells Henry that it's just a little infection and that he's going to be good as new tomorrow.

Emma is still leaning against the wall next to the door, her shaking hands hidden behind her back, thinking about how close to the truth Henry is going to be if she doesn't think of something soon.

"I'm going to go make breakfast. Henry, be good", Emma says and disappears down the hallway, not even attempting to ask Killian what he wants to eat.

She takes her time in the kitchen, feeling like the worst mother ever for letting Henry get so attached to Killian, and it gets her thinking about her own mother. It's been a month since she got Mary Margaret's phone number but she still hadn't called her, and for some reason today feels like the right day to do so.

When the breakfast is ready she makes a stop in the living room and brings "Peter Pan" with her so that Killian can entertain Henry while she makes the most important call in her life.

* * *

Emma paces around the kitchen, dialing the number and hanging up as soon as it starts ringing until she tells herself to get a grip and finally hears her mother's tentative hello in her ear.

"It's Emma", Emma says, biting her lip and waiting, bracing herself for the sound of a broken telephone line.

"Emma", Mary Margaret says with such affection in her voice it leaves Emma breathless. "I'm so glad you called."

"I wasn't sure if I should… After all, you left me when I was just a baby", Emma says, letting her bitterness color her voice because if she lets herself feel anything else she might fall apart before this phone call ends.

"We never left you", Mary Margaret says and Emma blinks in surprise, placing her finger against the end call button because she's starting to think this wasn't such a good idea.

"I beg to differ. I was in an orphanage my entire life", she says, her voice carefully controlled.

"It was a horrible misunderstanding, but your father and I love you so much and we would never leave our baby girl", Mary Margaret rushes to get everything out, her voice cracking as she struggles not to cry.

"You're not making any sense, and I suggest you start doing it now or I'm hanging up", Emma says, her stomach tied into knots because the last thing she expected was her mother denying that she left her.

"No, please. Can we meet so I can explain everything?" Mary Margaret asks, panic and urgency painfully evident in her voice.

"I'm not meeting anybody until you tell me what the hell you're talking about. How can a child of loving parents end up in an orphanage?" Emma asks, her voice rising because this is too painful and she can't keep her calm anymore.

"We were in a car accident", Mary Margaret says, her voice shaking. "A drunk driver hit us and we went off the road. We were in a coma… Your father still is", Mary Margaret chokes out and Emma can't believe her ears.

"What?"

"I woke up after a couple of months but by then they had already sent you to an orphanage on the mainland and your papers somehow got lost. Emma… you have to believe me that I spent the past twenty-three years searching everywhere for you", her mother says and Emma is speechless, gripping the phone tightly and wishing she could hold onto Killian's hand.

"Then how did that guy in the orphanage knew who you were?" Emma asks her because this sounds too good (or too horrible) to be true.

"I only figured out which orphanage you had been sent to when you already left it. I asked them to give you my number if you ever contact them again, but I never stopped looking. Where are you now?" Mary Margaret asks, clearing her throat because her voice is hoarse from all the tears she had held back.

"In Pearl City", Emma says, dazed and unable to form a single coherent thought.

"You're on O'ahu?!" Mary Margaret exclaims and falls apart. Emma fights her own tears because over the years she had imagined a lot of scenarios in which she met her parents, and the common denominator was always that they didn't give her away of their own volition.

"Yes, where are you?"

"In Honolulu. I've always been in Honolulu. How long have you been here?" Mary Margaret says and her voice is so gentle, wrapping around Emma and making her believe that happy ending are possible, even for her.

"A little over two years", Emma says, wiping away her tears because she can almost feel everything finally falling into place.

She'd unknowingly returned home and found both her parents and Killian there, and it's suddenly a little too much.

"Can I call you back later?" She chokes out and Mary Margaret reluctantly agrees, asking her to promise again and again that she believes her and that she's really going to call.

"I believe you", Emma repeats, and when they finally hang up she lays her head on the kitchen table and cries, letting go of the hurt she'd been living with her entire life because she's not an orphan anymore.

* * *

She only goes back to Killian and Henry after she had calmed down, washed her face and reapplied her mascara.

Killian gives her a questioning look as soon as she comes in and she gives him a beaming, albeit watery smile.

"They didn't give me away", she tells him, and Henry looks at her with an adorable frown on his face before poking Killian in the shoulder to go back to reading the book.

Emma nods for him to go on and sits in the chair next to the bed, dangling her legs over the arm as she settles in to listen.

Last time Killian was reading Henry this book she had other things to do so she hadn't realized how good he is at it; his voice flows like honey and his British accent is perfect for this particular story, but that's not why both her and Henry are completely spellbound. It's in the way he changes his voice, giving it a dark edge when he's being Captain Hook and making it carefree and nonchalant when he's being Peter Pan. What astounds her even more is that he'd probably been reading for at least an hour and his voice isn't even a little bit hoarse.

Emma lets him finish the chapter before taking the book from Henry because she can't hold it in any longer.

"Mommy, no", Henry says, reaching for the book, and Emma tells him that Killian is still sick and that he needs to rest a bit. "Okay then."

"I need to tell you something about your grandparents", Emma says, drawing him into her lap and glancing at Killian before going on. "Remember how I said I couldn't find them anywhere?"

"Uh-huh", Henry says, nodding his head and playing with her hair, not really interested in this conversation when Peter Pan is waiting for him on Killian's bedside table.

"Well, I just found them", Emma tells him, and he looks adorably skeptic.

"How?"

"It doesn't matter how, baby; what matters is that soon you're going to meet your grandmother. How do you feel about that?" Emma asks him, hoping to avoid the subject of her father because she doesn't know how to explain to Henry that even though he's alive, he may never talk to him.

"What about grandpa?" Henry asks, catching on Emma's careful wording effortlessly, and she's got no other choice but to tell him the truth.

"He's been in an accident when I was little, and he still hasn't woken up", Emma says, and Killian gives her a sympathetic look because he knows that chances of him waking up after all this time are pretty much non-existent.

"Why not?" Henry asks, and Emma looks at Killian for help because she knows he's good at explaining things to Henry and because she's still reeling from the news herself.

"Sometimes people are too sick to be awake, and no matter how much they would like to wake up, they just can't", Killian says and Henry nods and accepts his explanation without any additional questions.

Emma bites the inside of her mouth because she knows Killian's not talking only about her father and since she's not supposed to know that, she pretends that she's okay, that nothing's wrong and that he hadn't already plotted his own death.

* * *

**Review?**


	18. Like Mother, Like Daughter

**I'm glad you enjoyed Emma reconnecting with Mary Margaret so have some more; tomorrow you're probably going to die, in a pretty good way. Thanks for reading!**

* * *

Emma comes to pick Henry up and faces a very angry Ruby because it's the third time in a row she's two hours late. She finds it increasingly difficult to put her son ahead of Killian, and it's killing her because Henry deserves better, but he's going to survive a couple of months of her coming home late; if she abandons Killian now there's no doubt in her mind that he won't be alive to see July 20th.

"I'm sorry", Emma says, but Ruby is having none of it. She ushers her into the kitchen and closes the door to the living room so Henry doesn't hear, then turns back with her arms crossed in front of her chest.

"What's your excuse this time?" Ruby practically hisses, her eyes flashing with anger because she cares about Henry and she can't understand why Emma keeps neglecting him like this.

"We were watching a movie", Emma says softly, and even though she feels terribly guilty about the entire thing she's still unable to keep a smile from stretching her lips at the memory of Killian having to suffer through a rom-com with her because last week he made her watch "We Were Soldiers". Again.

"So you're spending less and less time with your son because you'd rather spend it with your boyfriend, is that it?" Ruby asks, and Emma feels like her best friend just slapped her because this isn't about her being in love with Killian; this is about trying to save his life.

But Ruby doesn't know that.

"He's not my boyfriend; I just work for him", Emma says, regret coloring her words, and Ruby jumps on it immediately.

"But you like him, you're maybe even a little in love with him, and he's using it to keep you there so you can help him deal with his boredom", Ruby says, and even though she tries to be gentle, her words still struck a chord with Emma because sometimes she wonders if that's all she is to Killian: a distraction.

The thing is, he never asks her to stay longer; it's always her suggestion and he always makes her text Ruby that she's going to be late. When she had first suggested it a couple of months ago he told her to go home, but lately he doesn't even try to pretend he doesn't want her there, and she can't figure out if it's a good or a bad sign.

"I know I'm always telling you to find somebody, but it's clear this guy has too much baggage and you should steer clear of any romantic implications with him", Ruby tells her, and Emma finds herself telling her the real reason she's so invested in her job.

"He's going to kill himself", Emma says, the words tumbling out of her mouth before she can stop them and as soon as they are out she presses her hand to her lips, meeting Ruby's wide-eyed gaze and wishing she could take it back, not because of the confidentiality agreement but because she feels like she's betraying Killian.

"What are you talking about?" Roby asks her and Emma shakes her head and tries to get out of the kitchen.

"Forget it", she tells her, but Ruby won't back down that easily.

"Didn't you say he can't do anything himself?" Ruby asks her with a raised eyebrow and Emma can't believe that she's being so nonchalant about this.

"I never said that", Emma says because she hadn't and because it's not true.

"Whatever. Wait… How do you know he's going to kill himself?"

Emma realizes that not explaining everything to Ruby would make it worse, so she tells her what she knows: that in less than two months a certain doctor is going to give him something that's going to make him fall asleep and never wake up again. She wants to stay calm and tell Ruby that she's doing all she can to change Killian's mind, but when she gets the last words out she just breaks down, imagining Killian slumped in his wheelchair, still and silent, everything that's making him who he is forever gone.

Ruby looks horrified and quickly comes closer, pulling Emma into a tight hug, but it's too late; all Emma can think about is never seeing his blue eyes and crooked smiles again, never hearing his voice when he calls her Swan in that unique way of his, never feeling his skin under her fingertips and chemicals reacting inside her.

"I'm so sorry", Ruby murmurs against her ear, rocking her from side to side and telling her that everything's going to be okay, that maybe he's going to change his mind at the last moment.

"That's why I've been staying late. I'm doing everything I can but it's not working and I'm so scared", Emma says, admitting all her fears because what's the point in pretending anymore? She's practically holding Killian's life in her hands and if she fumbles with it she's going to lose him, so she feels entitled to one freak-out in three months since she'd found out the truth.

"How can his mother let him do that? How can he do that to his mother? And how could they put you through it?" Ruby asks, staying true to her nature and getting pissed off instead of sad, making Emma jump to both Killian's and Mrs. Jones' defense.

"It's ultimately his choice. I'm not even going to tell you about the awful ways quadriplegics find to kill themselves when they want to die, and the fact that he gave her six months so she can accept it shows that he cares about her. I was never supposed to know about it but I heard Mrs. Jones on the phone and decided to try and change his mind; she didn't ask me to do it and Killian doesn't even know that I know", Emma says, clinging to Ruby and choking on her words because she's sobbing her heart out and she can barely draw a breath.

When Emma finally calms down a bit Ruby makes them hot chocolate with cinnamon and asks her if she had tried to tell him how she feels about him.

"I don't think it would help. Besides, I'm not even sure he likes me like that", Emma says, and Ruby rolls her eyes.

"He took Henry to see Missouri after being closed in the house for a year. I'd say he likes you like that", Ruby says, and Emma slowly nods to herself, her voice breaking when she finally speaks.

"If I don't come up with something amazing in the next couple of weeks, I'm not going to have any other option except throwing myself at him and hoping for the best."

* * *

Mary Margaret's is coming to Pearl City on Friday afternoon and Emma can't stop pacing in front of her building, glancing at her watch every two seconds because she can't believe she's finally going to meet her mother. They've been talking a lot this past week but she's still not used to the idea of even having a mother, much less seeing her for the first time.

A white Chevrolet Malibu enters the parking lot and Emma takes a few tentative steps closer, waiting for Mary Margaret to come out and meet her.

When she finally does and their eyes meet, there's instant recognition because despite Mary Margaret's dark hair they could still be sisters with full cheeks, light eyes and exactly the same chins. Emma sleepwalks forward and wraps her arms around the woman who never stopped searching for her, never stopped hoping that someday she would hold her like this again.

"Emma", Mary Margaret says, pressing her lips against her temple and holding on, her tears dripping down Emma's nose and mixing with her own. "My beautiful baby."

"Mom", Emma says softly, hiding her face in her mother's shoulder and feeling her heart hammering in her chest so hard she's afraid it's going to burst out.

"Shhh, it's okay. I'm here now", Mary Margaret says and they stand like that for a long time, just holding onto each other and trying to bridge twenty-three years of distance with nothing but love.

* * *

Three days later Emma asks Leroy to stay with Killian that afternoon and takes a bus to Honolulu. Mary Margaret meets her in front of the hospital and Emma follows her into David's room, sitting on the bed next to her father, not sure what she should do now.

"Just talk to him about Henry", Mary Margaret suggests, sitting in the chair next to the bed and holding Emma's free hand as she reaches for David's.

Emma talks until she's hoarse, first about Henry, then about her life and all the fanciful stories she had come up with about her parents and why they had given her away, all the while telling herself that if this works, if her father wakes up because she'd finally found him and Mary Margaret, then maybe she can also find a way to make Killian want to stay alive.

Hours pass and nothing happens; David's cold fingers stay motionless in her hand, and Emma is so disappointed and frightened for Killian that she can't stay here any longer, letting go of her father's hand and running out of his room, Mary Margaret following close on her heels.

"This is about Killian", Mary Margaret says, leaning against the wall next to Emma and giving her a small smile when Emma can't hide her surprise that she had figured it out so quickly.

"There are only two people you ever talk about; Henry and Killian. I doubt you'd be mentioning him that often if he were only your employer, and if he were anything more you wouldn't be working for him. What's going on?" Mary Margaret asks her and Emma tells her everything, breaking confidentiality for the second time this week but unable to stop herself because if anybody can understand her pain, it's her mother.

"I'm beginning to think that it's hopeless, that he's too tired and sad and broken to see that there are still things worth living for", Emma says and Mary Margaret wipes away both of their tears before speaking.

"Five months after the accident and three months after I had woken from my own coma, the doctors told me that it would be best if I let David go. They told me that he would've woken up by then if he could, that the chances that he would ever wake up are getting slimmer every day and soon they would be less than one percent."

"But you didn't let him go", Emma says, glancing toward the door of David's room, for the first time realizing that even though her life was hard, her mother's was worse because she had lost both her child and her husband in one cruel twist of fate.

"I couldn't. He's the love of my life and no matter how hard it is watching him like this, giving up on him would be worse. I'll never stop believing that he's going to find his way back to me, and you shouldn't either", Mary Margaret tells her, and Emma shrugs and looks at her feet.

"Killian isn't the love of my life", she says because she believes that if he was, they would be together and he wouldn't be thinking of dying, he'd be thinking of loving her instead.

"I think he is. I think you felt it on the day you met him and that's why you've been fighting so hard to keep him here these past few months."

Emma looks at her mother's smile and lets herself believe that maybe, just maybe Mary Margaret is right and if she holds on long enough love will always win.

* * *

Emma goes back to work the next day and takes Killian to see the cheesiest slasher in 3D she can find. As they flinch in their respective seats something inside her shifts; her desperation eases and she realizes that these last two moths shouldn't be about changing Killian's mind but giving him the time of his life, no matter the ultimate outcome.

She grabs his hand and shrieks when the killer swings his axe at their faces and Killian's firm grip on her fingers makes her unafraid of both make-believe special effects and what the future brings because she knows that as long as Killian's here there's hope, and two months is a long time.

"This is bloody brilliant", Killian exclaims and Emma smiles, the grin on his face making her believe in miracles, making her believe that nothing is lost yet, that the date of Killian's death is not set in stone.

"What's going to be even more brilliant is you taking me to see that Josh Duhamel movie after this idiotism is over and _not _bitching about it", Emma says and gives him a sweet smile.

"Whatever you want, Swan", he says and entwines their fingers together, heat shooting through her veins because he sounds sincere and completely oblivious to the fact that he just agreed to a rom-com without blinking an eye.

And if that's not true love, Emma doesn't know what is.

* * *

**Review?**


	19. Safe Haven

**I know you've been all waiting with bated breath for Neal's return, and here it is... Don't worry though, he can't lay a finger on her because she sees him first and runs to Killian, where they finally move forward. A bit. I hope you enjoy this chapter, it's one of my favorites!**

* * *

Emma rounds the corner of the building next to hers and nearly drops Henry because there's a yellow bug in the parking lot. She takes a deep breath and tells herself that it can't be Neal's but she still can't stop shaking. Her legs move as if they have a will of their own and she walks back, putting Henry down and keeping him out of sight of their windows.

"Mommy?" He says uncertainly and she forces herself to give him a reassuring smile and tells him that everything is okay.

Emma doesn't think Neal would bring his car to the island, but he'd try renting a bug because for some reason he's completely obsessed with that car. Still, she refuses to believe he's really here, but then she looks up and sees Neal coming out on the small balcony of their living room and her entire world comes crashing down.

"Mommy you're hurting my hand!" Henry cries and she finally exhales, dark spots flashing in front of her eyes because she's never been more scared in her life.

"We need to go, baby", Emma says and runs away, dragging Henry behind her and then picking him up and carrying him when he refuses to go on.

She tries to figure out how had Neal managed to find her but she can't focus, looking back over her shoulder again and again, barely registering where she's going. It's only when she gets on a bus with Henry that she feels herself gradually starting to relax because when she thinks about safe, she thinks about Killian, and that's exactly where she and Henry are going.

* * *

Emma lets herself and Henry into the house and goes straight to the living room, feeling less panicky but still shaking because Neal was in their apartment and she doesn't think she can ever go back there. She knows Killian won't mind if they stay here tonight, but that should be it because in the end she's just hired help and neither Killian nor his mother owe her anything. She can ask Mary Margaret to take her and Henry in tomorrow, but right now she just wants to stay here and feel safe for awhile.

Her emotions must be clearly written on her face because the second Killian sees her he asks her what happened, witty banter completely bypassed for the sake of finding out what's wrong.

"He found me", she says, feeling like she had just ran a marathon; sweaty, exhausted and entirely out of breath.

"Are you okay? Did he hurt you?" Killian says, coming closer and looking her over as if he can see through her clothes and check her for injuries.

Emma shakes her head, telling him how she saw Neal before he could see her, her heart starting to hammer in her chest again when she realizes that if he hadn't rented the same car he owns on the mainland, she never would've known he'd found her until it was already too late.

"Call the police right now. Leroy can go get your stuff tomorrow but you're not going anywhere near that place until they catch him", Killian says and when Emma lets go of Henry's hand he beelines straight for Killian's lap. Killian focuses his attention on Henry and she goes to the kitchen to make the call, thinking that she'd appreciate how fiercely protective Killian is of them if she wasn't so damn angry at herself for doing whatever she did that allowed Neal to find them in the first place.

The police aren't much help; they are going to send somebody to see if Neal is still at the apartment and keep an eye out for the car in case he's stupid enough to keep using it, but breaking and entering isn't a major crime, especially if he didn't steal anything.

Emma goes back to the living room, grateful for a rush of anger because it's better than feeling scared. Mrs. Jones and Henry are sitting on the sofa eating cookies and she gives Emma a sympathetic smile when she tells her that they can stay as long as they need.

"Come along, Swan", Killian says and she kisses the top of Henry's head before following Killian to his room. She drops down on his bed, her shoulders slumped, her hands still a little bit shaky because she had made herself believe that Neal would never find her and now he's somewhere on the island, uncomfortably close to her and Henry. "I really wish I could beat up that bastard."

Emma looks up from her hands and smiles, loving him so much for saying it because she never had anyone who would care about her enough to offer.

"Me too", she says and looks away from his penetrating blue gaze because it makes her want to tell him everything and she can't do that; there's always a chance he's going to say that she brought it on herself, and however slim that chance is, she can't take it.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" He asks her and she shrugs, wishing she could tell him how much she just needs someone to hold her. "Emma."

He says her name softly, his voice so gentle, almost pleading with her to look at him, to let him in even if it's only for a little while.

And so she does.

She tells him how she had met Neal and how perfect everything was until Henry was born. She tells him about the first time he hit her and about the last time, about her attempts to escape him and how she finally managed to get away.

She tells him how she had thought she was safe here in this paradise, and then she breaks down because she doesn't know what to do now, doesn't know where to go and how to keep Neal away from Henry.

She looks at Killian through tear-filled eyes and even though it's irrational, it still feels like he's the only one who can help her, the only one who can keep her safe. He clenches his jaw in an attempt to keep his cool but she can see anger simmering in his stormy eyes, and it only makes her love him more.

"Come here, Swan", he says, lifting his hand as far as it would go, offering her the comfort of his lap, and she doesn't hesitate, settling against him and wrapping her arms around him, her head resting on his shoulder. He lets his hand drop from the arm rest and it lands on her thigh, his fingers caressing it slowly, and that simple motion is enough.

"Tell me it wasn't my fault", she whispers, because if she hears him say it, maybe she's going to believe it and Neal won't have such power to break her anymore.

"Of course it wasn't your fault", he exclaims, trying to catch her gaze but she can't face him, not yet. "Look at me, lass", he coaxes gently, his accent sounding like a song in her ear and somehow, Emma finds the strength to pull away, her right hand still at the nape of his neck and her left resting on his chest, feeling his heartbeat jump in her hand.

"What that sorry sod did to you is unforgivable, and you didn't do anything to deserve it. You are bloody brilliant… amazing", he tells her and it reads like truth in his eyes because he's looking at her like nobody else had looked at her before; like she's more than good enough.

"Thank you", she says, the tears she'd been holding back finally spilling from her eyes; he kisses them away as they come, making her heart drop in her chest at each touch of his lips to her cheeks. She tries telling herself that it doesn't mean anything, that he'd use his hand if he could, but it's not working.

Killian Jones feels the same about her as she does about him, but the only reason he's letting himself act on it tonight is because she needs him to. And because she needs him to, when she turns her head and finds his lips, he doesn't pull away to tell her that he can't. He kisses her back, his lips moving against hers hesitantly, sweetly, like he's afraid he's going to break her if he applies too much pressure. Emma frames his face with her hands, feeling his scruff on the tips of her fingers and smiling against his mouth because he tastes like heaven and she can't get enough of him.

"I hope you two aren't doing the nasty because I'm coming in. I've got better things to do than waiting around to put Jones to bed", Leroy says through the door and Emma groans in protest, resting her forehead against Killian's for a moment before she hesitantly gets up from his lap.

"You need a better nurse", she tells him and he smiles, eloquently rolling his eyes just as Leroy comes in.

"I heard that", Leroy tells Emma and then pulls her into a bear hug. She looks at Killian across Leroy's shoulder but he just shrugs, and when he wiggles his eyebrows at her Emma realizes that she had stopped shaking, the threat that Neal poses momentarily forgotten.

Leroy releases her and she leaves them to it, peering into various rooms and finally picking the one she saw first, the one closest to Killian, before she goes to get Henry so she can show it to him.

* * *

"We came to borrow your shirts", Emma says, walking back into Killian's room with Henry an hour later.

"Help yourself, if there's anything still left after all the times you borrowed my clothes", Killian tells her and Henry dives into bed next to him, burrowing under the covers until he's settled against Killian's side.

"I'm sleeping here", Henry announces while Emma digs through the drawers.

"You are so not", she says without turning around and she can practically hear both of them pouting at her.

"Why not?" Henry demands and Emma finally finds a shirt that had probably shrunk in washing; it's still going to be like a tent on Henry but it's better than him sleeping in jeans.

"Because we just made you a bed", she says, tilting her head toward the doorway. "C'mon."

"Pleeeeeeease? It's comfy with Killy, and he tells the best stories", Henry says, wrapping his arm around Killian and closing his eyes.

"Give up, Swan, the lad knows that all the other beds are rubbish", Killian says and Emma sighs, completely defenseless against his charming smile and the way he raises his eyebrows at her.

"Fine. But he's a kicker."

"Can't feel eighty percent of my body, remember?" Killian says and there's no bitterness or self-deprecating in his tone; he's just stating the facts that go in his favor for once.

Henry changes into Killian's shirt in record time and settles back under the covers, looking up at Killian expectantly.

"We never got to finish Peter Pan, right?" Killian asks him and Henry shakes his head, occupying himself with turning the ring on Killian's index finger round and round until Killian gathers his thought and starts telling him the rest of the story from memory. Emma leaves them to it and goes to take a shower, feeling all kinds of silly for being jealous of her little boy because he's lying in bed with Killian, where she belongs.

She takes her time and then dries herself off, reaching for Killian's shirt and burrowing her nose in the soft fabric before she puts it on because it smells like him and nothing had ever smelt better to her.

When she returns to Killian's room Henry is already asleep, one leg thrown over Killian's stomach, the blanket hanging off the bed.

"Told you", Emma says, reaching for Henry to carry him into their room.

"Leave him" Killian says, looking down at Henry like he'd never seen a more perfect sight in his entire life. Emma feels a violent kick in her stomach because there's so much longing in his voice; an entire life filled with laughter and children that can never be hidden in those two words.

Killian looks up at her and Emma knows she can't deny him neither this nor anything else he may ask of her, so she picks up the blanket and tucks it around them both, leaning down to kiss Henry's forehead.

"Thank you", Killian says and Emma smiles, pressing her lips against his cheek before going back to her room, knowing that tonight she's going to rest easily because she and Henry are safe, sheltered under both Killian's roof and affection.

He may not be able to punch Neal in the face, but what he's doing for them means more than she can ever find a way to explain; for the first time she realizes that a safe haven is not a place, it is a person, and for her, that person is Killian.

* * *

**Review?**


	20. Happy Birthday, Killian

**I'm so happy you enjoyed the last chapter, and I think you're gonna love this one too! Thank you so much for reading and reviewing, it really means a lot that you're passionate about this story just as much as I am.**

* * *

Emma and Henry stay at Killian's until the weekend, and since the police can't find either Neal or his car anywhere they tell her that he had probably left the island and that she can go home. Ruby, Mary Margaret and Leroy go with her and they pack everything and move the stuff to a tiny apartment in Ruby's building that's always been empty. It's not much, just one bedroom, bathroom and kitchen, but Emma would rather stay in a cardboard box than risk Neal showing up at her place again.

She enters Killian's house on Monday, smiling to herself because he was disappointed that she and Henry hadn't just moved in, and she chooses to take it as a sign that he's slowly coming around and that six weeks from now he's still going to be here, and somehow she's going to find a way to convince him that she's completely in love with him, chair and all.

Mrs. Jones waits for her in the hallway and Emma immediately thinks that something had happened to Killian, her stomach dropping to somewhere around her heels.

"Killian is fine", Mrs. Jones says with a small smile, noticing Emma's worried expression, and Emma feels silly for being so transparent and a little ashamed for letting her feelings get the best of her in front of Killian's mother. "I wanted to talk to you about something, but I don't want him to hear."

"Okay", Emma says uncertainly, waiting to hear what's so important that Mrs. Jones felt the need to ambush her at the door.

"Killian's birthday is in two weeks, and I was thinking we should throw him a party, fly in all the people who love him that he hadn't seen since the accident", Mrs. Jones says, and Emma can't tell her how much it means to her that she's included in the planning of the party, that Mrs. Jones and her are "we".

"I think it's a great idea", Emma says with a bright smile, and both of them ignore the fact that it's just another play to try and change Killian's mind because they are both too close to him and talking about his death is something they can't do without falling apart.

"I'll need you to forward me his e-mail address book so I can contact everybody and send them the airplane tickets if need be", Mrs. Jones says, her eyes sparkling with uncharacteristic enthusiasm.

Emma agrees with the plan, but tells her to hold off sending the invitations until she discusses it with Killian; she needs to sell it to him because if they just throw him a surprise party he's going to be pissed beyond measure. Luckily, Henry's birthday is a week after that and it's a perfect way to kill two birds with one stone.

"Thank you", Mrs. Jones says and completely surprises Emma when she hugs her, holding on for just a second before walking back upstairs.

Emma knows that Mrs. Jones is not only grateful for the help with the party; she shares Emma's hopes that Killian's feelings for her are going to be what saves his life.

* * *

It turned out that the only thing Emma had to say was that Henry insisted on having his birthday party with Killian and even though he gave her the I-know-what-you're-doing look, he agreed to everything she suggested.

On the day of the party Emma comes to work in her usual outfit of jeans and a tank top, bringing that red dress she wore to the concert with her and storing it in the room she and Henry had been occupying a few weeks earlier. The guests have already arrived, settling in various hotels in Honolulu, and Emma feels irrational affection for all those people she had never met because they dropped everything to fly half across the world to see Killian, especially his Royal Navy buddies who were ready to sacrifice days of their short leaves for a birthday party.

"Who's ready to party?" Leroy asks, sliding into the living room just as Emma and Killian are finishing lunch. He's wearing jeans and a button down shirt with the ugliest flower pattern Emma had ever seen, so she avoids Killian's eyes because she knows they wouldn't be able to stop laughing if their eyes met.

"You look ridiculous", Killian says bluntly and Emma hides her grin behind her hand.

"You're just jealous of my amazing fashion sense", Leroy says and follows Killian into his room while Emma goes to get ready. Mrs. Jones is handling the caterers so Emma doesn't have to rush, taking a long shower and curling her hair, carefully applying make-up and slipping on her red dress.

The living room is empty when Emma returns and puts Henry's present on a table, where there are already boxes wrapped in bright colors with Henry's name on them. It makes her emotional because she knows they are from Leroy and Mrs. Jones, and the one with a greeting card with a ship on it and computer printout in it is from Killian.

Sometime along the way she and Henry had become a part of Killian's family and she shivers because that little voice in her head is getting louder, telling her that she's setting her son up for a heartbreak she's supposed to protect him from.

Ruby brings Henry at four and both of them are excited for Killian to come out of his room, each for different reasons.

"Please don't say anything inappropriate", Emma tells her friend, smoothing Henry's hair off his forehead and holding onto his hand to stop him for going into Killian's room; he's practically buzzing with excitement over their party and it's both adorable and worrying because he's way too attached to Killian for his own good.

"You mean don't ask him when he's going to make a proper move on you", Ruby says and grins at Emma's horrified expression. "I was joking."

"It's not funny", Emma says, but she can't resist smiling because she firmly believes something will happen today that's going to change everything.

"I did what I could, but it couldn't be helped; he still looks like a Disney princess", Leroy says from the doorway and jumps aside before Killian runs him over with his wheelchair. Emma is acutely aware of Ruby's jaw dropping because that picture she had shown her of Killian and Henry at the harbor wasn't all that clear, and because Killian in person, wearing jeans, white button down shirt and a blue vest that brings out his eyes is a pretty devastating sight.

"Killy!" Henry exclaims and Emma lets him go, watching with a smile as he launches himself into Killian's lap and starts babbling about the party and what kind of cake he chose and how many presents there are and how long until her can open them.

"What do you hope you're gonna get?" Henry asks him, and Killian's eyes fly to Emma instantly, holding her frozen in place. Ruby coughs loudly and Emma introduces her to Killian before Leroy zeroes in on her and starts chatting her up. Emma leaves them to it and walks over to Killian, unbuttoning the top button on his shirt and smiling because he barely notices since he's too busy staring at her boobs.

"That dress should probably be illegal", he says, and she shrugs.

"Right back at your outfit, sailor", Emma tells him, scooping up her son because the guests are starting to arrive and she can't let Killian stay in the corner and focus all his attention on Henry.

"See you on the dance floor, Swan", he says and she turns around, giving him a pointed look that lets him know she's going to hold him to that promise.

* * *

Emma can't believe how many people come up to her and tell her that she's all Killian ever talks about in his e-mails. She tries to downplay it because he really doesn't have much else to talk about, but they are all under the impression that Killian is completely taken with her no matter what she says.

And it feels good, because even though she's pretty sure he likes her too, there's always that little broken part of her that keeps telling her that it's all in her head, that their kisses meant nothing to him, that he doesn't want her like she wants him.

Henry runs around the room, practically bouncing off the walls and interrupting every conversation Killian is trying to have with the friends he hadn't seen in years, but nobody seems to mind. Emma is biased, but Henry is still cute and his affection for Killian is greater than everything except Killian's affection for him.

When it's time for presents and Killian lets Henry open his too, Henry gives him the biggest and brightest smile, and Emma knows it's not really about the party or the presents; it's about being in Killian's lap and finding a father that loves him more than his own ever could or would.

* * *

It's nearly midnight when the last guests leave, and Leroy is driving Ruby and Henry home. He's coming back to put Killian to bed later, but for now Emma is alone with him amidst the empty glasses and countless plates discarded all around the living room.

She slips off her heels and goes to the stereo, finding a song she wants before turning to Killian with a determined expression on her face.

"You owe me a dance", she says, holding her breath and waiting to see what he's going to do.

He looks up at her and she can practically see his thought process in his eyes, see all his doubts and all the ways he views himself as less than whole, but instead of saying anything about it because she knows words won't help, she just looks at him until he finally tilts his head toward his lap.

Emma sits down, wrapping her fingers around his stump and bringing it to his chest, her eyes still locked with his. He starts spinning them in gentle circles and Emma rests her cheek against his, her fingers combing through the hair at the nape of his neck as she softly hums the words of the song into his ear.

They both know that she hadn't chosen "Come Away With Me" lightly, and when it ends and she slowly pulls away to look at him, she can see in his eyes that he's trying to convince himself that she doesn't mean it like that.

"I'd rather spend my life like this with you than travel the world with anybody else", she says, cupping his face in her hand, restraining herself from closing the distance between them and kissing him, waiting for him to believe her and stop doubting himself.

"You don't know what you're saying", he says, but he can't stop himself from staring at her lips.

"I've been with you almost every day for the past five months, so I think I know what I'm saying", she tells him, her words carefully measured because she knows that if she tries to rush him, he's going to close off and she may never get another chance like this.

Blue eyes meet grey and she can almost taste him on her lips again when her cell phone starts ringing insistently. They both jump to the conclusion that something had happened to Henry and Emma dives for her purse and picks up, walking back to Killian and gripping his fingers in hers until Mary Margaret's voice finally registers.

After almost twenty-two years in a coma, David Nolan has woken up and reached for his wife's hand.

Mary Margaret is laughing and crying at the same time and Emma finds herself doing the same, holding onto Killian's hand and mouthing "David woke up" so he can stop worrying about Henry.

By the time Leroy arrives Emma and Mary Margaret had already made plans for Emma to come meet her father immediately, and even though she feels extremely happy, she also feels disappointed that her and Killian had been interrupted just when he was about to kiss her.

"Stick around and I'll drive you", Leroy tells her and starts for Killian's room, pretending not to notice that she's still holding Killian's hand.

"Good night, Swan", Killian says, looking up at her with a smile that makes her want to leap tall buildings because it makes her believe that he's close to letting her love him. Emma leans down and kisses his cheek, telling herself that someday her lips are going to meet his again and they are going to find healing together.

"Happy birthday", she murmurs and lets go of his hand, watching him disappear through the doorway and wrapping her arms around herself, wishing she could stop the clocks and give them more time to find their way to each other.

* * *

**Review?**


	21. Take My Breath Away

**Thank you so much for all the reviews for the last chapter, I hope this one doesn't disappoint, because it's what we've all been waiting for from the start. You might need tissues though, because Emma's fight is not over.**

* * *

Emma arrives earlier than usual to clean up the mess that she had left last night, tired because she went to sleep around 3 a.m. after finally meeting her father. And yet, she's humming with the radio and smiling to herself because she can't stop thinking about how good it had felt to sit in Killian's lap and let him turn them in gentle circles. She can recall every detail and she can't help wondering if he does too, if he regretted not kissing her until it was too late like she does.

"Aren't you peppy today", Leroy says, walking into the kitchen and pouring himself a cup of coffee, grumpy as usual. "Is the master up yet?"

"I don't know, I haven't checked", Emma says, setting down the garbage bag.

"He was in a pretty good mood last night; I'd have thought that so many people around him would annoy him, but it seems he actually enjoyed himself."

"I'm glad", Emma says, smiling into her own cup because she's pretty sure their dance had more influence on his good mood than all his friends combined.

"Unless something else happened before I showed up…" Leroy says, looking up at her with narrowed eyes.

Emma just smirks, knowing that it's going to drive him crazy because he's more of a gossip girl than anybody she knows.

"Fine, I'll just ask him", Leroy says and storms out of the kitchen, leaving Emma wondering if he's going to find out anything at all because if she'd learned one thing about Killian by now, it's that he's always a gentleman.

* * *

Killian is so silent the whole morning that Emma begins to think he's sick again. He tells her that he's fine, that she shouldn't worry about him and she leaves him be, staring out at the bay and contemplating whatever it is he's contemplating.

Leroy comes after lunch and she washes the dishes, feeling so different than she did when she came in this morning, wondering if last night even happened of if she just imagined it. She finally faces the possibility that maybe it hadn't meant to Killian what it meant to her and now he's just trying to figure out how to let her down gently.

"His highness wants to see you", Leroy tells her, and she almost drops the plate she's washing because there's a grin a mile wide stretching his lips.

"What are you so happy about?"

Leroy lifts his eyebrows and leaves, and she wishes she had told him everything before, because if she did, maybe he would have told her what to expect now. Still, it can't be something bad when the grumpiest person on Earth is actually laughing all the way to the front door.

Right?

Emma dries her hands and comes into the living room, hesitantly walking to Killian, the weight in her stomach getting heavier with every step she takes.

"Sit down, lass", he says, and Emma looks around in confusion because he's parked in the middle of the room and it doesn't look like he intends to move anywhere anytime soon.

"You mean-", she trails off, coming closer and practically falling in his lap in her haste to get there. She accidentally elbows him in the ribs hard enough to leave a bruise but he just chuckles, tilting his head and trying to get her to look at him.

"I'm sorry about today", he tells her when she finally meets his gaze, and Emma shakes her head, hope making her a little breathless.

"It's okay."

"No, it's really not", he says, and there's something in his voice that gives her pause, but she looks at him steadily and waits to hear what he's going to tell her. "Do you still believe that it's better to be with someone you're in love with for a short time than not being with them at all?"

The words fall from his lips like rocks and each of them feels like a blow straight to her heart.

Emma can see in his eyes that he knows that she knows, feeling stupid for thinking that he wouldn't catch on considering how good he is at reading her.

And because she's good at reading him too, there's no doubt in her mind as to what he's offering her; everything he's got, but only for a month.

He wants to be with her, but he needs her to understand that he's not changing his mind about ending his life and she can't decide if what he's doing is selfish or selfless.

"If either of us had just one more night to live, I'd want us to spend it together", she tells him because he's still here, he's solid and warm and he smells so good, and no matter how hard she tries to imagine being without him, she can't. Sometime along the way he had restored her belief in happy endings, and she still hopes that when the final day comes he's going to decide to stay with her.

"Emma", he whispers her name brokenly because he'd just handed her a fistful of broken glass and she took it without hesitation.

"I'm your Swan, remember?" she says, wiping off a few tears and giving him a brave smile, knowing that if she loses him she's going to be lost, and she'll only find comfort in her memories of them together.

Killian kisses her and Emma wraps her arms around his shoulders, wishing she could keep kissing him forever and never come down from this high to face the real world.

"Well then, Swan? Do you want to spend the night and experience my unparallel love-making skills first hand?" He asks her when they finally separate and Emma feels a shiver of anticipation running down her spine because even though he's mocking himself, the fact that he's willing to try is proof enough that she's special to him and he's just looking for a way to hurt her less.

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

* * *

Emma had been postponing calling Ruby all afternoon but the time has run out; Leroy already came and went and Killian is probably wondering if she had changed her mind and decided to leave him hanging.

"What do you mean you're spending the night? Is Killian sick again?" Ruby asks, worry creeping into her voice because Killian had managed to charm her last night despite her best efforts to resist him.

"He's not sick", Emma says, warmth flooding her cheeks when she thinks about what's going to happen soon.

"You mean _spending_ the night?"

"Yeah", Emma says, biting her lip. "Can Henry stay with you? I'd ask Mary Margaret but she has to take care of David now that he's awake and-"

"He can stay. But can Killian… you know?" Ruby asks, and Emma feels fiercely protective even though she's having the same doubts.

"Of course he can. Probably. Maybe. He wouldn't ask me to stay if he couldn't, right?"

"Probably not. But you've been in heat for months now, so I'm pretty sure that whatever you guys do is going to get you off."

"Come on!" Emma exclaims even though she knows her friend is right. She just wants to be close to Killian in any way she can and she'd bet her life that making love with him is going to be something she's always going to cherish.

"Wait… Does this mean he changed his mind? Emma?"

Emma looks up and takes a deep breath to calm herself because she promised herself she's not going to think about _that_.

"I'll talk to you tomorrow when I get home", Emma says and hangs up, leaving the cell phone in the kitchen and walking through the silent house toward Killian's room.

* * *

Killian is leaning against a couple of pillows, his too blue to be true eyes following her every move as she crosses his room and gets into bed with him. He gives her a crooked smile and she forgets her uncertainty and nervousness because they are finally coming together and soon everything will be exposed, both of their walls turned into ruins.

She reaches for his hand and studies his graceful fingers, butterflies fluttering in her stomach when they grip hers with quiet strength; it's like he wants to tell her that it's okay but can't find the words, and Emma still hears them in the silence, leaning down to kiss each knuckle before finally pressing her lips against his.

This kiss is different from the previous ones they shared, unrestrained and incredibly hot, and Emma tangles her fingers in his soft hair as the world spins on without them.

Maybe it's because she'd never felt like this about anyone before or because Killian's mobility is so limited, but his kisses aren't like anything she'd ever experienced before; she sees star constellations bursting with rainbow colors behind her closed lids, her skin tingling and humming with need to touch his.

"Is it just me or is it hot in here?" She asks him, pulling away to catch her breath and biting her lip because he looks at her like he could eat her whole.

"It's definitely hot", he says in a low voice, and Emma smiles because his cheeks are flushed so prettily.

"What do you think we should do about it?"

"You can always take something off", he tells her and raises his eyebrows suggestively; Emma lets go of his hand, sitting up next to him and pulling her shirt off, her eyes never leaving his as she unhooks her bra and drops it on the floor.

Killian licks his lips and Emma takes his hand and presses it against her breast, closing her eyes and arching into it as his fingers tease her mercilessly; she doesn't know how he can make her burn like this with the simplest of touches and decides that it must be pure magic of true love.

"Your turn to get naked", she announces when she can't take this beautiful torture anymore, wrestling with his shirt a little until she finally gets it off so she can kiss his collarbone, his shoulders and every scar on his chest, wishing she could make them all disappear along with the pain they had caused him.

"Can you feel this?" She murmurs, glancing up at him as she sucks his nipple, and his soft gasp is answer enough, so she keeps experimenting, her hand sneaking past the waist of his sweatpants to find that what she's doing is definitely working.

Emma finishes undressing them both and then lies on her side next to him, guiding his hand to her waist and holding it there before she kisses him again, feeling his gentle caress right down to her core. Her fingers trail over the perfection of his jaw line and she smiles when he bites her lip playfully, sneaking her hand lower again and feeling him grow harder in her hand.

"Let me touch you", he says and looks at her with eyes so bright with wonder, like he can't quite believe that making love can be this easy despite being complicated.

Emma shifts and then his hand is between her thighs, clever fingers making her feel like she's about to combust and lose herself so completely that she's never going to be able to return to who she used to be. She rests her forehead against his and closes her eyes, wishing she could freeze this moment and keep it perfectly preserved forever.

"Please", she murmurs and straddles his hips because she can't wait any longer; she's too hot and she needs him too much.

"Whatever you need, love", he breathes and she guides him inside, riding him slow at first, then faster and faster, bracing her free hand against his chest and bringing his hand to her waist to steady her, their fingers firmly entwined.

She doesn't have to tell him that she loves him; he already knows because he sees it in her eyes just like she sees it in his.

The setting sun is painting Killian's room orange, dust swirling in the air around them, but Emma can only see Killian; he's looking at her like she's some kind of goddess, and she wishes she could find the words to tell him that he's the only one who can make her shine like this. Their breathing gradually synchronizes as they come closer to the climax and when they finally take flight together, all the hurt and heartbreak that came before are erased and love gives them back their freedom.

* * *

**Review?**


	22. Don't Say Goodbye

**I can't tell you how glad I am that you're enjoying this story, so I'm just gonna say thank you for reading and letting me know how much you like it. This chapter is probably the most heartbreaking thing I've ever written, so have some tissues ready and keep believing in the happy ending, because it's coming soon.**

* * *

Killian wakes up at the crack of dawn, his bedroom gradually filling with color as the sun rises and finds its way through the curtains Emma forgot to close last night. She's sleeping soundly because her back is to the window and her face is pressed into his neck, and Killian is glad he's got a little time to think about everything and figure out what he's going to do.

A wry smile curls his lips because if this were a movie, everything would be so simple; he'd finally see that there's too much to live for, that finding love and holding onto it is enough, especially after the night they just had.

The cold harsh truth is that it's not enough, not because Emma is not enough for him but because he's not enough for Emma. If she could read his thoughts she'd fight him so hard on that, because despite all that's she'd been through she's still so hopeful and never lets the ugly side of love get her down, but there is too much ugly when it comes to him and the way he has to live his life.

And yet, if he had any guarantees that he's going to stay the way he is now and not get worse, he'd let go of his quest for peace because of Emma, because of the most beautiful girl in the world that's holding onto him with everything she's got, her arm around him, her warm breath fanning his skin every time she exhales. She's holding his hand against her waist even in sleep and he closes his eyes, wishing they could stay like this forever, wishing for the world to freeze and give him more time with her.

He doesn't want her to wake up and see the truth in his eyes, hear him say that he can't give her forever because he needs to leave this world while he still can, while he's still able to decide his own fate.

If he didn't love her so much, he'd be able to keep her with him until the very end, but he does, and he can't do that to her, so when she wakes up he's going to ask her to leave and forget about him, because he'd rather have her hate him than break her heart by making her watch him take his life.

* * *

"Well then, don't you two look comfortable like that", Leroy says from the doorway and Emma wakes up with a start, almost falling out of Killian's bed in her haste to reach the crumpled covers. The only thing that catches her is Killian's arm that's still around her, defying both gravity and his condition and Emma ignores Leroy, pulling the covers over their heads and smiling at Killian.

"Morning", she says, kissing him with eyes wide open because she doesn't want to miss a single second of this.

"Morning", he says, kissing her back and returning her smile, but the look in his eyes is that of utter sadness.

"Hey, it's okay. I understand that you still need to… do what you need to do", she tells him, her voice barely wavering even though she feels like she's falling apart from the inside out. She knows him too well by now to think that one night with her is going to change his mind, but she believes in what she had said yesterday afternoon and she'd rather have him for a month than not have him at all. The door of the bedroom softly clicks shut as Leroy leaves and gives them some privacy because he knows as well as she does that this conversation is not going to be easy.

She hopes that it isn't painfully obvious that she's not giving up on trying to change his mind; she's just going to try another approach, and if it doesn't work and he leaves her anyway she hopes that her pain is going to be a little easier to take because she's going to know that he spent his last month on Earth loving her and being loved in return.

"Emma, I… I can't-", he starts to say, but she covers his mouth with her hand and gives him a watery smile.

"I know you love me, and I know you think you should protect me, but it's too late. I could leave this house and never come back and I would still think about you all the time, I would still feel you, I would still love you long after you were gone", she says, tears spilling from the corners of her eyes because it hurts to think that she could ever be without him.

"You're saying that you accept that I'm not going to change my mind and still want to stay with me?" He asks her, tentative hope in his voice and eyes making her smile because she was so afraid he's going to push her away no matter what she said.

"I told you before and I'm going to tell you again; I'd rather have this with you for a short time than try to protect my heart and be without you", she says and kisses him, pouring all her feelings into it, cupping his face in her hands and willing him to accept that she's not going anywhere.

When she finally pulls away and looks at him, his blue eyes tell her that this is another battle won, and she wipes away her tears knowing she can rest. For now.

"Promise me you're not going to try and change my mind", he says softly, and she's acutely aware of the gravity of this moment, so she hesitates for only a moment and then tells him what he wants to hear.

"I promise."

He nods and gives her his most devastating smile and she wraps herself around him and just holds on, closing her eyes and praying for forever.

* * *

Time passes in lurches and skips, measured by the hammering of her heart, by whispered conversations late at night after making love and spending days together, taking Henry with them all over the island.

She feels both the happiest and the saddest that she'd ever been but she hides the sad because she doesn't want Killian to know how hard it is to look at the calendar every morning and realize that his death is coming closer and closer.

Mary Margaret comes to get her and Henry twice a week and drives them to Honolulu to visit with David, but Emma hates it because both of her parents think that Killian is the worst human around for doing this to her, and no matter how many times she tells them that she's a grown woman who can make her own choices they don't seem to understand. Still, she appreciates the fact that they don't try to tell her what to do, and so it goes like that.

She holds on to hope and Killian holds on to his decision, and every memory they make together is safely stored in Emma's heart.

And then she wakes up three days before he's supposed to die, all at once realizing that she can't do this anymore, that all the hope is gone. Killian's arm is around her but she feels betrayed and alone, and the worse thing is that she's got nobody to blame but herself.

Killian wakes up a few minutes later even though she doesn't move a muscle, and he blinks sleepily and smiles down at her until the look on her face registers and panic creeps into his eyes.

"I'm sorry", she says, carefully disentangling her limbs from his and getting out of bed. His hand falls from her waist but he still reaches for her in a futile attempt to catch her and keep her where she is, but she's already too far away. She stands next to the bed and puts her clothes back on, but that one foot of space between them might as well be a mile for him and even though she hates herself for doing this, she doesn't see any alternative.

"No, Emma, please, wait", he says, words rushing out of his mouth because words are everything he's got to try and stop her from leaving. She's being cruel and she knows it, but she can't be in this room any longer, she can't spend these last days with him without begging him to stay.

"I can't believe I was so stupid", she says, her fingers shaking as she tries to button her jeans so she can go and fall apart where he can't see her.

"Emma, please. You promised", he says and she looks up at him sharply, embracing the anger that surges through her veins.

Her pain is immense, and in that moment, she wants him to feel it too, to hurt as much as she does.

"I thought you'd stop being so damn stubborn and come around on your own!" She cries out, glaring daggers at him and pressing her lips into a thin line. "I thought I meant more to you, I thought that maybe you'd realize me and Henry are reason enough to stay alive, but apparently not."

"Look at me, Swan", he says, his voice sounding so calm compared to hers, and she knows that he's about to tell her things she doesn't want to hear; it feels like all he ever does is break her heart, and yet she doesn't doubt that he loves her as much as she loves him.

"I am looking at you!" She explodes, and he shakes his head, looking so disappointed that she finds it hard to hold onto her anger.

"But you don't see _me_, you see what you want to see, and completely ignore the fact that I'm too broken to go on."

His words are like a physical blow to her stomach and she comes back within his reach despite herself, leaning over him and only realizing that she's crying when her tear lands on his cheek so it looks like he's crying too.

"I always saw _you_; I've seen past the chair and the medical issues and I love _you_, and it kills me that you can't separate yourself from that and see that your life isn't over."

His fingers find her hand and he grips it like he's holding on for dear life, and for a wonderful second Emma believes again; she can almost see them together next year and next and next, watching Henry grow and loving each other no matter what.

"I'm so sorry", he says, and Emma pulls away, turning around and picking up her shoes on the way to the door. A part of her knows that this is the last time she's going to see him and screams at her to go back, to kiss him one last time, but she just can't; if they have to have a last kiss, she'd rather remember passion and love than desperation and goodbye.

"I'll be at my parents' if you change your mind", Emma says, reaching for the door knob without turning around to even look at him. She's going to regret it as soon she exits his room, but right now she can't do it any other way.

"Emma, please, don't go like this. Please let me say goodbye to Henry, please… let me kiss you goodbye", he says, his calm finally shattered, his voice cracking with desperation because if she walks away, he won't be able to chase after her.

Emma chokes on a sob and forces herself to look back at him, to acknowledge that she just hurt him as bad as he's going to hurt her in three days time, hoping that maybe, just maybe, he's going to put her needs before his own when the time comes.

"I love you", she says and slips out of his room, closing the door softly behind her and just collapsing against the wall, pressing her hand against her mouth so he doesn't know she's still there. Her ruse is not working because he can probably feel her just like she feels him, and he keeps calling her name until his voice gets too hoarse and he finally has to give up.

The silence is somehow killing her even more than his desperation to make her come back, and she can't keep herself from sobbing anymore so she ducks into the bathroom and cries until there are no tears left, just raw, breathtaking pain.

Emma knows she has to keep it together for Henry, so she washes her face and then goes to tell her son that they are leaving and that there's no time for him to say goodbye to Killian.

* * *

**Review?**


	23. D-Day

**Sorry about the last chapter, I know it hurt (I was in a funk for days after writing it), and you're probably going to feel the same about this one, but tomorrow and the day after are going to be so happy, I promise! Thanks for sticking with this story, it really means the world to me. **

* * *

Emma wakes up calling Killian's name, her face wet with the tears she had cried in her sleep, her entire body shaking because every cell inside her knows that today is the day Killian dies, today is the day she loses him for good.

Mary Margaret tries to talk to her and offer some comfort but there's nothing she can say that can make it better. Henry is hurt that he didn't get a chance to say goodbye to Killian before they left and when he asks Emma if maybe Killy is mad at him because he did something she chokes on a sob and lets Mary Margaret deal with her grandson.

"Killian had to go away unexpectedly, but he wants you to know that he loves you very much", Mary Margaret tells Henry and he nods to himself, still sad, but somewhat satisfied with her answer.

Emma stands in the kitchen with her hand pressed against her lips to keep her sobs as silent as possible, trying not to look at the clock on the wall that counts down the last hours of Killian's life.

* * *

Mary Margaret drives them all to the hospital because Emma is climbing the walls at home, probably counting on David to find the comforting words that escape her.

Emma knows that it's a lost cause; the love of her life is about to take his own life, and she's never going to recover when he does.

She sleep-walks into her father's room and crawls into bed with him like she's four-years old, finding fragile comfort in him arms. Mary Margaret takes Henry and leaves the two of them alone because she knows that there's a special bond between them and that Emma needs her father's arms more than she needs either her mother or her son.

"When's the-", David starts to say, then trails off because he doesn't know how to put it.

"Execution?" Emma asks, trying to see the clock through eyes brimming with tears. "In half an hour", she says, her voice breaking because in thirty minutes this world won't make sense anymore, not without Killian in it.

"Then you can still make it", David says and Emma frowns up at him.

"And do what? He's not changing his mind", Emma says bitterly, her chin trembling because this can't be happening; it feels like a bad dream and she just wants to wake up.

"You love him, Emma, and he loves you, and no matter how much you've hurt each other, you both deserve to say goodbye", David says and Emma snorts through her tears.

"How did I hurt him? I did everything I could to make him stay and it still wasn't enough."

"Mary Margaret told me about you walking out on him. Take it from somebody who still hasn't regained the use of his legs; that hit him right in the place where it hurts the most", David says and Emma closes her eyes, wishing she could just cease to exist and come back when this pain eases.

For it to happen she'd have to be gone for a long, long time.

"What would you do if you were in his position? Would you give up and leave mom and me just because you were afraid that your condition would get worse?" Emma asks him, laying her head on his shoulder and letting him hold her.

"I don't know, Emma, because in a couple of months I'm walking out of here and I can't put myself in his shoes. But I understand how it feels to be unable to get out of bed quickly and follow your wife when you're fighting and she storms out; it's even worse for Killian because I can at least get into a chair by myself and he can't."

"You and mom never fight", Emma observes and David smiles, his blue eyes reminding her of Killian too much so she looks away.

"That's not the point", he says and rubs his hand up and down Emma's back. "If you don't go see him one last time you're never going to forgive yourself."

Emma sits up slowly, glancing at the clock and then looking around for Mary Margaret's purse because she needs the keys for the car. Her decision to go to Pearl City is almost unconscious and she doesn't let herself think about it because she feels David is right.

She needs to see Killian and send him off with her kiss still on his lips.

* * *

Emma flies down the highway and dials Mrs. Jones' cell phone again and again in hopes of telling her to ask Killian to wait until she gets there but her calls go straight to voicemail. She's about to hit redial when her eyes catch on the calendar on her phone's background and she almost loses control of the car because the red circle that marks the day she was supposed to get her period was a week ago and it never came.

A slow smile spreads across Emma's lips because the only time she had ever been late in her life was when she was pregnant with Henry, and she throws her cell phone on the passenger seat, flooring the accelerator because she needs to tell Killian that he's not going anywhere; he's going to be a father and if that's not divine intervention, she doesn't know what is.

She doesn't even acknowledge the possibility that it's already too late.

* * *

Emma parks the car on the front lawn and jumps out, not even bothering to close the door. She fumbles with the keys and finally gets inside, running through the house and calling Killian's name all the way to the living room.

"Emma", he says her name like a prayer and Emma covers the distance between them in a second, dropping on his lap and wrapping her arms around him as tight as she can.

"I'm so sorry I left you like that", she says, pretty sure that he can feel her heart hammering against his own chest the way it's racing.

"I'm glad you came back", he says, and she pulls away to see him smiling up at her, his eyes so bright they take her breath away. "I was afraid you'd never speak to me again."

"I almost didn't come, but my father put some things into perspective for me. How long do we have?" She asks him, choking on tears she refuses to shed, on the verge of hyperventilating because she still doesn't know how to let him go.

"Does fifty years work for you?" He says and she stares at him until he points at the clock on the wall with his chin and Emma realizes she's ten minutes late, and he's not dying.

"What are you saying?" She asks, her voice so low it's more exhaled breath than sound.

"I was about to try and call you to tell you that the doctor came and I told him to piss off", he says and Emma doesn't know whether to laugh or cry, still not sure if she's understanding him correctly.

"You're not going to kill yourself?" She asks, her fingers digging into his shoulders as she waits for his answer.

"Killing myself would hurt my Swan, and no matter what the future holds for me, I'll take it all rather than hurting you", he says and a tear rolls down the side of his face and disappears into the scruff, his eyes never leaving hers. "These past six months with you have been magical and I'm sorry for being so stubborn; it was only when the doctor came today that I realized I don't want oblivion if I lose you."

Emma cups his face in her hands and rests her forehead against his, their tears mingling together even as they give each other goofy smiles because everything is going to be okay.

"I have to tell you something", she says, showering his face with kisses and giggling like a schoolgirl now that she knows he's never going to leave her if he can help it, but before she can take his hand and guide it to her stomach a cold voice comes from the doorway and shatters her happiness in a thousand jagged pieces.

"And what might that be, Emma?" Neal asks, entering the room with a gun pointing at her and Killian.

At first Emma can't understand what's happening, telling herself that this is just another nightmare she's soon going to wake up from; she and Killian had ten seconds of pure bliss and now their lives are about to end, Neal's intentions clearly written in his bloodshot eyes.

"Please put the gun down", Emma says, getting up from Killian's lap and raising her arms in a pleading motion.

Killian drives the chair around her and tells her to stay behind him, and Emma grips his shoulder and curses herself for leaving her phone in the car.

"Oh Emma, what am I going to do with you? Couldn't you find anybody better than this cripple?" Neal asks her, his gun still aimed at her over Killian's head.

"Oi, you stupid git" Killian says and Emma's fingers dig deeper into his shoulder as Neal shifts his attention from her to Killian.

"What did you just call me?"

"You heard me", Killian says and when the gun wavers from Emma to him he propels his chair forward, Emma's fingers catching on empty air as a gunshot rings out, both Killian and Neal ending up on the floor.

Emma screams and finds herself on her knees next to Killian, only distantly aware that Leroy had showed up out of nowhere and is now pummeling Neal with his fists, because a bloody flower is blossoming on Killian's shirt and his eyes are a little out of focus when he looks up at her.

"It's okay it's okay it's okay", she repeats, covering the gunshot wound on the left side of his chest with both of her hands, spellbound with the blood seeping through her fingers.

"Emma, look at me", he says and grits his teeth against the pain, and she shifts her eyes to his, hearing Mrs. Jones dialing 911 and fighting a horrible feeling that it's already too late. "I dreamt about dying for so long, but you gave me a reason to live and I'm glad to trade my life for yours."

"No no no you can't die, Killian, you can't die because you're going to be a daddy and I need you to help me raise this baby, please", Emma sobs, her heart breaking because the look of wonder on his face is more beautiful than anything she had ever seen before and because she knows that he would be the most perfect father in the world.

"I already was", he says, and when she realizes he's talking about Henry it takes her every ounce of strength she's got left not to break down. He raises his hand and she bunches his shirt over the gunshot wound so she can put his hand against her still flat belly, make him feel a connection to their unborn baby and hold on for him or her, if not for Henry and Emma.

"I only realized today, otherwise I would've told you earlier", she chokes out, feeling the cool metal of his rings against her skin and praying to whomever might be listening to help her keep him awake until the ambulance arrives.

As if on cue, the siren pierces the silent street and she grips his fingers tighter, leaning down and kissing him, pouring all the love she feels for him into that one kiss, ignoring the voice in her head that can't stop screaming because it might be their last.

The paramedics burst into the room and Leroy pulls her away from Killian to let them work, wrapping his arms around her as she stares at Killian's face; his eyes are closed and there's a smile frozen on his lips like he's just sleeping and dreaming about something wonderful.

Emma reaches for his hand and Leroy lets her take it, but Killian doesn't squeeze her fingers or run his thumb over the back of her hand, his hand limp and so very cold in hers.

* * *

**Review?**


	24. Hold On

**Here we are, last chapter. There's just the epilogue tomorrow and then this story is over, and I hope the happy is even happier because of all the hurt I've put you through. Meanwhile, I'm already writing my next long story, so you won't have to wait long for more feels. Thank you so much for sticking with me and trusting me to make it all better, and enjoy!**

* * *

Emma learns that even broken hearts keep beating as she rides in the back of an ambulance with Killian, holding his hand and praying that the green line on the monitor doesn't go flat.

When they reach the hospital they take him away and Mrs. Jones meets Emma in the waiting room next to the OR; Emma clings to her, careful not to get blood on Mrs. Jones' clothes, trying to convince herself that the love of her life is not going to leave her alone with their unborn baby and Henry.

Since her cell phone is still in Mary Margaret's car back in Pearl City, she goes to David's room to check if she and Henry are still in the hospital, ducking into the bathroom on the way so her son doesn't see Killian's blood on her hands.

"Emma", her parents say in unison when she bursts into David's room, her eyes filling with tears as soon as she sees them. Mary Margaret jumps to her feet and pulls Emma into a tight hug, telling her how sorry she is about Killian.

"He's not dead", Emma chokes out, pulling out of her mother's embrace and giving a brave smile to Henry because this must be scaring him. "Neal found me and he shot Killian but he's not dead. They are operating on him right now, so I have to go back, I just wanted you guys to know."

Henry slips down from David's bed and Emma picks him up, telling him that everything's going to be okay because he's looking at her with wide eyes and caressing her wet cheeks in confusion; her son had never seen her cry before.

"We'll wait with you", Mary Margaret says and glances back at David who transfers into his wheelchair; they make their way back to the waiting room where Mrs. Jones is standing with her arms wrapped around her like she's trying to hold herself together. Her pale face brightens a little when she sees Henry and Emma lets her hold him because she needs his gentle comfort more than Emma does right now. After all, Emma's got both of her parents holding her hands and Mrs. Jones has got nobody; her husband is miles away and her son is fighting for his life.

"Did you call Mr. Jones?" Emma asks her, still wondering what kind of father wouldn't at least come to say goodbye to his only son.

"He was already on his way here last night but there was a storm and now he's stuck on mainland, but he's going to fly in as soon as he can", Mrs. Jones says and she sounds so relieved that Emma can't even ask her why had he waited until the last possible moment to come see Killian.

* * *

Hours pass slowly and Henry falls asleep, stretched across two chairs with his head resting on Mrs. Jones' cardigan, while Emma paces round and round the waiting room.

Leroy joins them after giving his statement to the police, telling them that Neal is facing a minimum of twenty years in jail for attempted murder, but Emma barely hears him because she's too busy worrying about Killian.

The doctor comes into the waiting room when it's already getting dark outside and Emma looks at him, feeling like she's having an out of body experience because he's giving her a big grin, which can only mean that Killian is going to be okay.

"I patched up the bullet wound, nothing too serious, but while I was in I noticed that there was a fragment of vertebrae still pressing against his spinal cord so I took care of that too. I don't want to get your hopes up, but there's a ninety percent chance that he's going to regain the use of his arms completely and some sensation below the line of his injury. He still won't be able to walk, but I'd say he's going to appreciate my work nonetheless", the doctor says and under any other circumstances Emma would be annoyed with a person so full of himself, but right now she can't stop smiling and thanking him for what he'd done.

In an uncharacteristic display of emotions Mrs. Jones hugs the doctor and Mary Margaret starts crying, all the commotion waking up Henry who looks around in surprise and asks Emma if Killy is going to be okay.

"He's going to be amazing" Emma tells him, picking him up and twirling him around because she can't remember ever being this happy in her entire life. "When can we see him?"

"Come with me", the doctor says, stepping out of Mrs. Jones hug and leading the three of them down the hallway into a room with a glass window through which they can look at Killian.

"I love you, Killy", Henry says, pressing his nose and hands against the glass and Emma smiles, watching Killian sleep and hoping he's dreaming about her and the baby growing in her stomach.

* * *

They finally let her into his room forty-eight hours later and Emma hovers above him, smiling through tear-filled eyes because the first thing he asks her is if her and the baby are okay.

"We're fine", Emma says, pressing her lips against his forehead and wiping away a tear that rolls down his cheek.

"I told myself I wouldn't cry but God, I thought that Henry would be the only child I'd ever have and I can't-", he trails off and Emma shushes him with the gentlest kiss she'd ever given him, just a soft touch of her lips on his.

She pulls away just far enough to look at him and he lifts his hand to cup her face, his thumb caressing her cheek; she's drowning in eyes so blue and bright that it doesn't even register exactly what he's doing. He catches on first, his eyes shifting from hers to his hand, and he looks at it as if he's not quite certain it belongs to him.

"Yeah, about that. Your previous doctor was kind of an idiot, managing to miss a bone fragment when he had operated on you. He'd been falling all over himself trying to apologize to Mrs. Jones so she wouldn't sue him, but she's adamant in doing everything she can to make sure he never works as a surgeon again", Emma says, tilting her head so it presses into his hand, blinking away tears so she can keep looking at him; his eyes are dancing with joy and his pretty mouth is stretched into a grin she'd only ever seen in pictures.

"If all this is a dream, I never want to wake up", he says, putting a lock of her hair behind her ear and looking at her with such love and devotion that it makes her feel like her heart is going to burst because nobody had ever made her feel so loved.

"It is a dream, Killian, but we're never going to wake up", she tells him, and despite the fact that she'd cried so many tears in the previous week, they still keep coming because she feels overwhelmed with both happiness and hormones.

"Come here", he says, tilting his head toward the empty space on the bed next to him and Emma lays down carefully, resting her head against his good shoulder and cringing a little when he embraces her with both arms despite the pain it must cause him. "You have no idea how long I had wished I could hold you like this."

"You held me, Killian. You held me with your eyes and your hand and your words, and I need you to know that it would've been enough", she tells him, giving him a brilliant smile; she had never needed anything except for him to stay with her.

"I don't know what I did to deserve you, Swan, but whatever it is, I'm bloody glad I did it", he says and rests his cheek against her forehead as she presses her nose against his neck and breaths him in, thinking that he didn't have to do anything; they were always meant to find each other and fall in love.

* * *

There is so much evidence against Neal that the trial lasts a week and at the end of it the judge gives him the maximum sentence; they ship him off to a high security prison on mainland right away, courtesy of Mrs. Jones and the connections she had made in the Governor's office in the short time she'd been in Hawaii.

Mr. Jones moves in with Mrs. Jones and stays on the island despite the fact that Killian refuses to see him. Emma finds Charles Jones a bit intimidating even though he's always so polite to her, but no matter how much he tries to get into her good graces she's reluctant to try and convince Killian to give him a chance to apologize. She feels that this is exactly what Mr. Jones deserves and besides, Killian needs time to forgive him for abandoning him when he needed his father the most.

Emma and Henry spend most days in the hospital, trying to divide their time between David and Killian equally even though they find themselves in Killian's room much more often. Sometimes Emma leaves Henry in David's room and goes to get Killian tea just to find her son in Killian's bed with whatever book or toy occupies them at the time.

It's the moments like that, when she stands leaning against the doorway and watches them play, Killian too wrapped up in Henry to notice her that she truly acknowledges how lucky she is.

She even feels grateful for Neal and all the pain he'd caused her because if it weren't for him she'd have never found Killian and got a shot at true love with him, and she thinks that finding true love is the only thing that matters in life, because when Killian looks up and notices her standing there, his smile growing wider, she can see forever in his eyes and it makes her feel fearless and so very blessed.

* * *

It's been almost two months when Emma rounds the corner and finds herself face to face with Killian pushing the hospital wheelchair toward her with the power of his own arms and hands. Well, his own hand a prosthetic, but that's not the point. The point is that this is the first time she sees him do it and it's like watching poetry in motion, it's like watching a miracle unfold in front of her eyes because this is something she never thought she'd see even if she often dreamed about it.

"Look at you", she says softly, coming closer and cupping his face in her hand.

"You should've seen me half an hour ago; I think I scuffed every wall and corner in this entire ward", he says and Emma chuckles, settling herself in his lap when his arm wraps around her waist and guides her there.

"I don't know if I should tell you, but this wheelchair is really ugly and uncomfortable", Emma says and he laughs, his shoulder shaking under the elbow she's resting there.

"I bloody love you, lass", he tells her and then his face turns serious and solemn, causing her to sit up and pay attention.

She watches him reach into the pocket of his sweatpants and take out a suede red box, opening it with his thumb to show her the most beautiful ring she'd ever seen, the golden band thin and delicate with a diamond that is exactly the same color as her eyes.

"I probably should've waited until they let me out of here, but I need to know now. What do you say, Swan? Will you marry me?" He asks her, and she can't believe that he's still a little uncertain of her acceptance.

"Yes, the answer is yes, of course I will", Emma says, offering him her hand so he can put the ring on her finger. It fits like a glove and her head spins when he kisses her, his tongue tangling with hers and sending heat racing over her skin. She feels the rising pressure against her thigh and pulls away, giving him the eyebrow because they are in fact in public.

"Well… my legs might be useless, but everything else is still intact", he says and winks at her, making her laugh because she loves how playful and unrestrained he is, finally unburdened with his disability.

"I love you so much", she whispers and wraps her arms around him, closing her eyes and resting her chin on his shoulder. She can feel him smile when he kisses her cheek, his arms holding her so tight she's a little breathless, but she doesn't tell him that because she doesn't want him to ever let her go.

"I know, lass, and I love you. And you, little duckling", he says, caressing her stomach with his knuckles.

Emma thinks that this must be what Heaven's like because she had never felt so elated before, but she gets the feeling that it's only going to get better.

Killian kisses her and Emma melts against him, feeling their love spreading like magic out into the world around them.

* * *

**Review?**


	25. Epilogue

**Here we are again, at the ending of yet another story... it feels like yesterday when TMWA was ending and I didn't want it to, just like I don't want this story to end. It's been wonderful and I loved each and every one of your reviews, (but especially Irene's) so thank you for sharing the feels with me, even when it seemed too much. I'm already working on my next story, so hopefully I'll see you in a couple of weeks, when there's going to be even more feels to cry about. The mix that goes with this fic can be found on my tumblr (montanarosalie) and it's tagged **fanmix**, so check that out if you ever miss this fic or want to revisit the feels.**

* * *

_Two years later_

Emma clears the table in the kitchen after lunch, still unable to believe that she only has to look up and see the gently sloping hills of Surrey beyond the window. This house in England was the first piece of his world Killian had showed her, but it wasn't the last; they spent their honeymoon in Paris where they took the elevator to the top of Eiffel Tower and watched the sun falling below the horizon and then hopped on a train to Prague and watched Henry pose for a portrait on the Charles Bridge before going back to Hawaii where Rose Emily Jones was born on the first day of March. She had blonde hair like her mother and the eyes like her father, and both Emma and Killian cried when he first held her in his arms.

After filling the dishwasher and starting the program, Emma walks down the hallway, following the sound of music coming from Rose's room, smiling to herself because she knows what she's going to find.

Rose is lying in her cot, fighting sleep because she's as fond of her father's singing voice as Emma is, and Henry is sitting in Killian's lap, pressing the strings on the neck of the guitar Killian is picking, their son's forehead adorably scrunched in deep concentration.

Emma waits before the song ends before walking into the room, shaking her head at Killian.

"You were supposed to put her to sleep", she says and he shrugs.

"It's not my fault that she finds this obligatory afternoon nap to be a complete load of rubbish", he says and Henry giggles, taking the guitar and running out of the room so he can experiment by himself. "Oi, careful with it!"

"I'm careful", Henry calls over his shoulder and disappears down the hallway.

"Let's try with a story, huh?" Emma says and he presses a kiss against her hip before settling her in his lap.

"What do you say, Rosie, do you want to hear a story?" Killian asks his daughter and she nods enthusiastically, completely awake again.

"Peter and Neverland", she demands, and as Emma listens to him talk their baby to sleep, she thinks about the day she brought Henry to work with her and how Killian read him this same story, their bond only growing stronger with time.

She's always going to be grateful to Mr. Barrie for writing the most important book in the world.

* * *

Emma lays on a blanket with her head on Killian's thigh, looking at Rose wobbling around the clearing as she chases Henry. Killian is leaning against the tree that stretches its branches over them and provides shade from the warm August sun, sifting his fingers through her hair absentmindedly because his whole attention is on Rose.

The first few months of their daughter's life, Emma would often find the bed empty, Killian sitting next to Rose at odd hours of the night, her tiny hand wrapped around his index finger, his chin resting on the rail of her cot as he watched her sleep.

"Come back to bed", Emma would say, massaging the tight muscles in his shoulders to help them relax after an entire day of propelling his chair forward.

"Just a little bit longer", he'd answer, completely spellbound with the rising and falling of Rose's chest.

Henry lets Rose catch him and she runs away from him shrieking, launching herself at Killian and yelling "safe" at the top of her lungs.

"Sorry mate, can't touch little swan here", Killian says and settles Rose in his lap, careful to keep her kicking feet away from Emma's face.

"I'm hungry", Henry announces and Emma sits up, opening the picnic basket and handing him a sandwich. She gives Killian the bottle with iced tea for Rose and their fingers brush together, electricity jumping between them, his smile making her want to stay in this moment forever even though she knows she had thought the same before and she's going to think it again. Their life has been like a fairytale since she found him, and this is their happily ever after; two beautiful children and more love than anybody could ask for.

* * *

Sometimes she wakes up in the middle of the night and finds Killian watching her intently, his eyes so blue even in the semi-darkness of their room.

"Is everything okay?" Emma asks him, caressing his face and trying to read his expression with her fingertips.

"Everything is perfect, love", he says, turning his head so he can kiss her palm.

They both go back to sleep but it keeps happening until the night he tells her that he's glad for the accident if it was the only way for her to walk into his life and turn everything right, and Emma smiles, wrapping herself around him and telling him that she feels the same about Neal.

"I love you, Swan", he whispers against her ear and Emma kisses him, feeling his strong arms pull her closer until she doesn't know where he starts and she begins.

"And I love you."

* * *

Every September, when the English weather becomes gloomy and rainy, Emma packs their suitcases and they fly back to O'ahu, where they settle until the next summer.

Their house is in the same neighborhood of Honolulu as her parents', spacious and bright with a big garden that opens up to a private beach.

On their second anniversary they take Killian's boat, which Henry insisted they name Jolly Roger, Killian guiding it out of the harbor as Henry bounces up and down beside him.

"Dad, let me let me let me", he repeats until Killian lets him take the wheel, staying behind him and keeping an eye on what he's doing.

"I'm pretty sure there's a law against letting children drive boats", Emma says, trying to prevent Rose from going to Killian until she puts enough sunscreen on her face and arms.

"Oh come on, Swan, you know Henry's good at this", Killian says, laying his hand on her bare knee, his attention still on Henry.

"Yeah mom, don't worry", Henry says and Emma gives up, watching Rose walk over the gently rocking deck fearlessly because she knows that her father's hand is always there to catch her and because she's got sea in her veins just like Killian.

"Come 'ere, my little pirate princess", Killian says and scoops Rose into his lap and tickles her mercilessly until she starts giggling.

Emma leans down and wraps he arms around him from behind, resting her chin against his shoulder and remembering the first time he took them sailing; his eyes were dancing with joy because he could finally share his love for the sea with the people who mean the most to him. This boat had seen a lot of first times, but her favorite would always be hearing Rose say her first word; Emma handed her to Killian and Rose said "daddy", clear as a bell, making them both a bit weepy.

"Happy anniversary, lass", Killian says, leaning his head against hers, keeping an arm around Rose and a hand on Henry's shoulder so he knows that he's got him.

"Happy anniversary", Emma says, pressing her lips against his stubbled cheek, feeling like she's flying because she's got everything she ever wanted; her parents, two babies and a husband who loves her more than anything else in the world.

A girl who grew up all alone is never going to be alone again.

* * *

**Review?**


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